Join us for the fourth teaching in our powerful Ten Commandments series. In this episode, we delve deep into the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day” What does it truly mean to remember the Sabbath and keep it set-apart? Was this command only for ancient Israel, or is it still relevant for us today?
Yahweh gave His Sabbath as a sign between Him and His people—a day of rest, worship, and delight. Yet in our fast-paced, modern world, many have forgotten or forsaken this holy appointment. In this teaching, we examine the origin and purpose of the Sabbath, its connection to creation and covenant, misunderstandings and traditions that have clouded its meaning, and how we can honor this commandment in spirit and in truth.
Whether you’re new to the Scriptures or seeking deeper understanding, this message is for you. It’s time to return to the ancient paths and walk in obedience to Yahweh’s Word with sincerity and love. So join us as we learn the God Honest Truth about the fourth commandment of the Sabbath.
Transcript
In this fourth teaching in our 10 Commandments series, we turn our attention to a commandment that’s often overlooked and neglected within mainstream Christian churches. A commandment that’s rarely ever kept even though Yahweh put it in a list with the same seriousness as idolatry and murder and adultery. The Sabbath was not offered as a mere recommendation. It was put forth and commanded by Yahweh himself and blessed by Yahweh. And this is no ordinary precept.
It’s a covenant, a sign between those who follow and are a part of Yahweh’s people and Yahweh himself. As we open the scriptures together, let us not diminish what Yahweh has set apart and made holy. So join us as we uncover the God honest truth about the fourth commandment regarding the Sabbath. So this is a teaching on the fourth commandment continuing in our series on the 10 commandments. So make sure to have your pen and paper ready and get your notes out so you can take all the notes we’ve got for this particular subject in this particular teaching.
But if you would like more notes than what we present to you here, and I promise you there’s a whole bunch more information than what we’re going to present tonight. During this teaching, we have cut it way down for the sake of time, so it’s not a multi hour video. However, we are planning on doing a entire series coming up probably next year on the Sabbath. So stay tuned for that and you’ll get a whole bunch of information on the Sabbath coming up. But for this teaching, it’s gonna be cut way back.
So if you like some more information after watching this teaching, go to our website at godhonesttruth.com. Click on the article post for this particular episode. There, you’ll be able to see the on demand video. You’ll be able to see the draw slides that are coming up on your screen right now if you’re watching on a video platform. You’ll also be able to get the notes that we took for this episode and the notes that we took for this subject in general.
Now, let me tell you, our master notes list for the Sabbath is almost 80 pages long. From historical quotes to scriptures to lexicographical I’m sorry, lexicon and dictionary definitions to encyclopedias and all kinds of stuff. Almost 80 pages in our master notes. It’s all free for you. Go check it out today at godhonesttruth.com or go down below in the description and you’ll be able to see the convenient link that we posted for you right there.
All you gotta do is click on it and takes you directly to that article post. And that link in the description should be there whether you’re watching on a video platform or an audio podcasting platform. It should still be down there all the same. So far, we have gone over the first through I’m sorry. Three commandments.
Then go over again real quick. Number one, have no other gods or mighty ones before me. Number two, do not make yourself a image or carved image or any likeness of anything in the heavens, on the earth, or under the earth. Number three, do not bring the name of Yahweh to nothing or bring it to vain. So now we get to the fourth commandment.
And if you are like me, come from a King James background, the fourth commandment in King James states it as such, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Of course, that’s a shortened version. So let’s look at the command, the fourth command, and the full verse, I guess you could say, or the full set of verses for this command. This comes from Exodus chapter 20 verses eight through 11.
Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart or make it holy. Six days you labor and shall do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your Elohim. You do not do any work. You, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore, Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart. Now some things to note about this before we dive in a whole lot deeper. Number one, this isn’t just a suggested proposal for your consideration so you can think about it and, well, maybe we’ll do it, maybe we don’t want. No. It says, do this.
This is one of those commandments where he’s commanding you to do this. It’s a decree of Yahweh, after all. Number two. Consider the gravity of this particular commandment. This commandment is listed amongst other commandments on the same level with the same authority, same weight and gravity to it as things such as murder and idolatry and adultery.
It’s right here in the same list as those. It has the same weight. It has the same authority, and we should consider it with the same seriousness as these other commandments. So keep that in your mind as well. And number three, it’s a sobering reality when we begin to think about the fourth commandment is that this Sabbath commandment is even though it’s spoken and commanded by Yahweh himself with the same authority as the rest of the commandments, a commandment such as idolatry and adultery and murder.
This commandment is often the one that is the least remembered and the least observed in modern Christian practice. And it’s sad. It seems like a buffet line to some churches when they go to the Bible and they say, well, the Old Testament’s done away with and then some of them will say, well, it was just the civil law, not the moral law. The 10 commandments still stand. But then you bring up the things like the fourth commandment, and they’re like, well, that’s doesn’t really stand either.
We’ve changed that. No. No. That’s not how it works. This is the same thing.
If murder is still wrong according to scripture, then the Sabbath still stands according to scripture. It’s on the same level as murder and idolatry and adultery and having multiple gods. And, oh my gosh, that’s the same level that this Sabbath command is on. So let’s dig down a little bit further and get deeper into this commandment to hopefully help understand it better. This is where it really gets nerdy.
So have your notes ready or go to our website and check out the notes that we provided for you for free. Looking again at the fourth commandment, it starts out with remember. This is the only one of the commandments where we are specifically told to remember this commandment. Now, the other ones, yeah, we should remember them, but it is not specifically told to us in the commandment to remember it. This is the only one where we are specifically told to remember this commandment, remember the Sabbath day.
This is Strong’s h two one four two, zakir zakir, and it means just like what you would think it would mean. It means to remember, to recall, to call to mind, to mention, to be mindful, to recount, etcetera, etcetera. Same kind of concept that you would think about when you think of remember. Here’s your outline of biblical usage from blueletterbible.org and your Strong’s definition. Here’s your Brown Driver Briggs entry and your Justinius’ Hebrew Lexicon entry.
They all pretty much saying the same thing. Remember, call back to memory, be recalled. Remember the Sabbath. And here is your Jastrow’s dictionary, the Targums entry, and Klein dictionary entry for Zakhar. Now moving on, after you remember the Sabbath day and this commandment, we’re told, you know, remember the Sabbath day.
So what does Sabbath mean? Well, Sabbath means rest. You can kinda pick that up You kind of pick that up from the actual commandment itself. When you take things into context, you look here and it says, remember the Sabbath day to set it apart. Six days you labor.
So it’s talking about work and laboring and all this other stuff. But then it says, after these six days, on the seventh day is a Sabbath. So what would a Sabbath be? It would be a rest. And that’s what Sabbath means.
It means rest. Cessation from work, however you wanna put it. And that comes from Strong’s h seven six seven six, Shabbat Shabbat, and it means just like you would think it means. It means a Sabbath in English. It means a Day of Atonement, Sabbath year, intermission, rest, cessation from work, things like that.
In this context, it means the weekly day of rest. Now, let’s go back and look at this real quick. The commandment itself says the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh. This is something to point out real quick too because the weekly Sabbath is just one of these Sabbaths throughout the year that is commanded in scripture by Yahweh himself. It’s more than we get more days of rest than just the weekly Shabbat.
We get days of rest on the beginning and end of Sukkot. We get them on Passover, etcetera, etcetera. So there’s more than just a weekly Shabbat. This is just a Sabbath. But Sabbath in and of itself means rest, and this is talking about the weekly day of rest.
So here’s your outline of biblical usage, Strong’s definition, and Brown Driver Briggs entry for h 7,676. Here’s your Jacenius’ Hebrew lexicon entry and Jastreel’s Dictionary of the Targums entry and the Klein dictionary entry for your benefit. Now this word, Shabbat, actually comes from another word, which is Strong’s h seven six seven three, and that is Shabbat. Shabbat. And this means more generally to cease, rest, desist, things like that.
Here’s your outline of biblical usage and Strong’s definition for Shabbat. Here’s your Brown Driver Briggs entry and Jacinus’ Hebrew lexicon entry. Here’s your Jastrow’s Dictionary of the Targums and Klein dictionary entry as well as your Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament entry. And for further information, definitely go check out the notes because these entries that we’ve put up here from the dictionaries and the lexicons and etcetera etcetera, the ones you see on your screen right here are way cut down because a lot of these entries, especially from the Halot or the Hebrew and Aramaic looks kind of the old testament. They put a lot of information in there.
So we cut it down just to fit on the screen here for you or the video, but if you want to see the full entry, definitely go check out the notes for this particular episode and the subject, and you’ll be able to see the whole entry right there. A whole bunch of stuff that you may wanna know or you may not wanna know, but go check it out anyways. Once again, you see here, this is remember the Sabbath. What is Sabbath again? Sabbath means rest, specifically in this context, the weekly day of rest because we see, in contrast, it says six days that you work.
So you got contrasted with both six days and working, and it says the seventh day is the Sabbath. The seventh day is the rest day of Yahweh your Elohim. And notice that too. What does it say it’s the Sabbath of? It say it’s the Jewish Sabbath?
Does it say it’s the Sabbath of the Jews? No. This is not the Jewish Sabbath. Yeah. Judaism honors the biblical Sabbath, but it’s not the Sabbath of the Jews.
It’s not the Jewish Sabbath. It is the Sabbath of Yahweh. That’s how scripture puts the Sabbath. So keep that in mind as we go forward and we look at some further historical information. And when you study this further in your own studies, keep that in mind as well.
Moving on. Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart or make it holy. So what does make it holy mean? Make something holy? It means to set it apart.
And this particular translation, it doesn’t use the word holy. It uses the word set apart. It’s the same thing. Unfortunately, a lot of people, if they’re only using things like the King James, they don’t understand what holy means. But holy means set apart, and that comes from Strong’s eight six nine four two, Kadash Kadash, and it means to be set apart, to be consecrated, hallowed, things like that.
Here is your outline of Biblical usage and, again, it is way cut down. So go check out the notes for the full entry. Here’s your Strong’s definition and your Brown Driver Briggs, again, to be set apart, consecrated, hallowed, things like that. I’m sure you’ve heard consecrated and hallowed before. Here’s your Decenesis Hebrew Lexicon entry and your Jastrow’s Dictionary of the Targums entry for Kadesh Kadesh.
And finally, your Klein dictionary entry for Kadesh. Again, to be holy, to be sacred, to be set apart. This Sabbath is to be set apart, is to be consecrated. It is to be holy. That’s what we’re talking about here.
So once again, let’s read this whole thing altogether now that we’ve dug a little bit deeper. Exodus chapter 20 verses eight through 11. In other words, the fourth commandment Quote, remember the Sabbath day to set it apart. Six days you labor and shall do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your Elohim. Do not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.
For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart. So some other things. Let’s go over real quick. It says, to remember the Sabbath day.
And, again, Sabbath means to rest, the rest day, the Sabbath day, and make it holy or set it apart. You’re to work for six days and then take off and rest on the seventh. Keep that in mind too because there’s other philosophies out there as far as how the Sabbath is to be calculated. But here we see from scripture, it’s six days, Sabbath. Six days, Sabbath.
Six days, Sabbath. That’s the biblical example. Then going on, it says, you do not do any work. You don’t do any work. Understand that part so far?
Now it goes on and says, you nor your son nor your daughter. So you don’t even make your family work. You give them the day off. It says nor your male servant nor your female servant. So you have people working for you.
You don’t put them to work on Sabbath either. You give them a day of rest. Don’t make them work. And it doesn’t matter who it is. If they are believers or not believers, you do not make them work.
Then it continues. Know your cattle, so not even your animals. You got animals. Don’t make them work and do anything on the Sabbath either. Give them a day of rest.
Then it continues, know your stranger who is within your gates. So someone is staying with you, you got guests, don’t make them work. Don’t hire people on the Sabbath. Don’t put anyone to work, not your family, not your animals, not your guests, not people who work for you, your employees. None of them.
This is all contained within this fourth commandment. Don’t make any of them work. And then we’re told within this very same commandment why we are to consecrate and make holy and remember the Sabbath day. It continues. It says, for in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested the seventh day.
So why do we remember the seventh day and why do we keep it holy? Because Yahweh made everything in existence in six days. And then he, Yahweh himself, rested on the seventh day of creation. Yahweh rested. So we remember Yahweh because we love Him and we want to remember what He did as our Creator.
We rest in memoriam of what Yahweh did during creation. That is create everything and then rest. So now we, imitating him like we should be doing, we work for six days in our life and then rest on the seventh just like Yahweh did back in creation. And then finally, it continues and it says, therefore why therefore? Because, therefore, since Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and rested on the seventh day, therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart.
So Yahweh himself took this very day of the week and blessed it. How many other days in scripture do you ever see being blessed by the almighty creator of heaven and earth? How many days? Does it ever say the first day of the week was blessed by Yahweh? I mean, I haven’t found it, and I’ve I’ve looked a lot.
And I’m not gonna say I’m perfect, that I know every word of every translation of the scriptures. So maybe I’ve missed it. But I have yet to find a verse where it says that Yahweh blessed the first day of the week. However, many times, and here’s one example, it does say that Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day. He blessed the seventh day of the week.
So Yahweh himself blessed the Sabbath day, thereby making it holy. And it goes on in scripture to say that the Sabbath is an everlasting covenant between Yahweh and his people. From Exodus chapter 31 verses 13 through 17. Speak to the children of Israel saying, my Sabbath you are to guard by all means, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations to know that I, Yahweh, am setting you apart, and you shall guard the Sabbath, for it is set apart to you. Six days work is done, and on the seventh is a Sabbath of rest set apart to Yahweh.
And the children of Israel shall guard the Sabbath to perform the Sabbath throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant. Between me and the children of Israel, it is a sign forever. For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day, he rested and was refreshed. Wow. So much in there.
We did cut out parts of this just to shorten it down for the slide. Go check it out for yourself in your own translation if you would like those parts that were truncated or abridge, I guess you could say. But here we see, and this isn’t the only section in scripture, but we see that the Sabbath is something we are to continue to guard, that we’re to guard it forever throughout our generations. It’s an everlasting covenant between us and Yahweh. It’s not for those of you who don’t understand what everlasting means.
Okay. Everlasting does not mean for a couple of years. No. Everlasting does not mean for a few centuries. No.
Everlasting does not mean, well, you know, just until the messiah comes, then it’s gone. No. Everlasting means forever. So, again, if you’re having trouble with that, please email us so we can help walk you through this about what everlasting means. But this Sabbath covenant, this sign between us and Yahweh, it is everlasting.
We are to observe it and guard it and make it holy throughout our generations, not just our own personal generation, but the generation that comes after us and generation comes after them and the one after them and the one after them forever. So this is not something that can be changed. It’s not something that has been changed. But again, in scripture, Isaiah chapter 56 verses one through seven. Thus said Yahweh, blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who becomes strong in it, guarding the Sabbath lest he profane it.
To the eunuchs who guard my Sabbaths and have chosen what pleases me and are holding on to my covenant. To them, I shall give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters. Also, the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to Yahweh to serve him and to love the name of Yahweh, to be his servants, all who guard the Sabbath and not profane it, and are holding on to my covenant. Them I shall bring to my set apart mountain, and let them rejoice in my house of prayer. This is a bombshell, especially this last part right here.
I mean, it’s good news for the eunuchs in the first part too. But here in this last section here, it talks about the foreigner who comes in and joins the people of Yahweh, who joins themselves to Yahweh, who obey him, who serve him, who worship him, who do the things that he commands, things like the Sabbath. So this is not just the Sabbath for the Jews. This is not the Jewish Sabbath. Once again, Jews are someone who when I say Jews, those within the Judaism, but Jews do observe the biblical Sabbath, but it’s not just for the Jews.
It’s not the Jewish Sabbath. It’s the Sabbath of Yahweh. That’s how the Bible puts it. And it says here and in other places too, the foreigner who joins themselves to Yahweh and observes things that he has commanded, like the seventh day Sabbath, they are the people of Yahweh, and they are the ones that he will bring to his holy mountain and let them rejoice in his house of prayer. Once again, Ezekiel chapter 22 different sections here.
Ezekiel chapter 20 verses 11 through 13. And I also gave them my Sabbath to be a sign between them and me to know that I am Yahweh who sets them apart. But the house of Israel rebelled against me, and they greatly profaned my Sabbaths. Ezekiel chapter 20 verses 19 through 21. I am Yahweh.
Set apart my Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between me and you to know that I am Yahweh your Elohim. For the children rebelled against me. They profaned my Sabbaths. So the Sabbath, the fourth command, is very important to Yahweh. As we saw, it’s an everlasting covenant, and there’s various and multiple key points and takeaways that we can take from this particular teaching, at least even so far.
Number one, and these are things that we are told within the fourth commandment itself for the most part, and there’s some others we got from the other scriptures. But number one, it’s the only one of the 10 commandments where we are specifically told to remember this. Now, again, we should remember all the 10 commandments because they’re all important. They they’re all very serious commands that we should take very, very seriously. Murder, adultery, idolatry, etcetera, etcetera.
But this is the only one we are specifically told in the commandment to remember. Number two, the Sabbath is a designated as a day of rest. Now, keep that in mind. How in scripture is the Sabbath day defined? It’s defined as a day of rest.
Yeah. Obviously, there’s other things that go along with it too, but scripture defines the Sabbath as a day of rest. We saw that’s what the word Sabbath actually means. When you get into other sections of scripture, you get into conversations with people, and they say, well, look at this evidence right here. And they want to point to another day as being the new Sabbath?
Are they pointing to a day of rest, or they trying to point out something else that they do nowadays, but it would be anachronistic to say that’s proof back then of a change in the Sabbath. No. Scripture defines Sabbath as a day of rest. Just to continue on this point real quick. What day of the week is the day of worship?
I mean, think about that and answer truthfully in just a moment. You can even let us know down in the comments below. Which day of the week is the day for worship? Alright. Time’s up.
The day of worship during the week is every day. It’s not this is Sabbath. It’s not the day that we fellowship or get together one day a week and that is the day for worship. No. We should be serving and worshiping Yahweh every single day.
Now, what is the day of the week where we fellowship? Same answer. Again, every single day should be a day of fellowship. I mean, we got work, we got family and stuff like that, so we can’t get together every day, but it doesn’t, you know, prohibit getting together every day or getting together on a Monday or a Thursday. We can’t just, you know, hold off until the Sabbath.
No. Every day is an opportunity for fellowship. In fact, in the Brit Chadashah, it says they were gathering together and breaking bread daily. Just because they were breaking bread, that is no evidence for a change in a Sabbath. Again, Scripture defines Sabbath as a day of rest.
So, unless it says the new day of rest is this day, there has been no change. Day of rest. That’s how scripture defines Sabbath as. The other six days, we are supposed to be working. That’s how you get the contrast there between the normal everyday, six day portion of the week and then the Sabbath day.
The Sabbath day is defined specifically as a day of rest in scripture. So remember that for your future studies and your future conversations about this particular subject. Number three. The Sabbath is a memoriam of the rest day that Yahweh took at the end of the creation week. Now, it just history didn’t suddenly change, and now Yahweh took off and took a rest on the first day of the week.
No. It will always be the fact that Yahweh rested on the seventh day. So, therefore, the Sabbath will always be on the seventh day because the Sabbath is a memoriam of the rest day that Yahweh took at the end of the creation week. Number four. The Sabbath day is the only day of the week in scripture that has a name instead of a number.
Every other day of the week has is noted by the number of or which day of the week it is, like the first day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day. Then we get to the seventh day, and sometimes it’s called the seventh day, but it’s also called the Sabbath, Shabbat. It’s the only day of the week in scripture that actually has a name. If for some reason I missed this too and you can find scripture that talks about a day of the week having a name, please point that out to me. I have been corrected in the past and I appreciate that because we’re all wiser now for being corrected.
So if there’s a name for a day in the week that I have somehow missed in scripture, let me know. But as it stands right now, the Sabbath is the only day of the week that has a name instead of a number. Number five, the Sabbath is a sign between Yahweh and those who are his people. We saw that in scripture, and that was just a small selection because there’s other verses that say pretty much the same thing. It’s a covenant.
It’s a sign between Yahweh and his people, and it’s not just the a specific ethnicity. It’s for anyone. We saw that scripture earlier that from Ezekiel. I think it was Ezekiel, but I may be misspeaking. Where it says that the foreigner, if they join themselves to Yahweh and serve him and obey him and do his commandments, including the Sabbath.
So it’s for anyone who’s his people, and it’s not based on bloodlines or genetics at all. And we’re also told that Yahweh specifically blessed the Sabbath day. No other day in scripture. Not the first day, not the fourth day, the Sabbath day. That is the day that Yahweh specifically blessed.
And finally, the Sabbath day refers to the seventh day of the week. When you look at scripture and every single time it talks about the Sabbath day, it is always in every single instance from the book of Genesis all the way through the book of Revelation. Every single time it mentions the word Sabbath, it is always referring to the seventh day of the week. There’s no getting around it. It doesn’t refer to any other day as a Sabbath.
It’s always the seventh day of the week. But what about Yeshua and the apostles? Did something change? Did they teach something different? Did they do things differently?
Let’s look at that. Was the Sabbath sustained or was the Sabbath changed? We look at Mark chapter six verse two, and Sabbath having come, he, referring to Yeshua, began to teach in the congregation, and many who heard him were astonished. Luke chapter four verse 16. And he, Yeshua, came to Nazareth where he had been brought up.
And according to his practice, he went into the congregation on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. Luke chapter six verse six. And it also came to be on another Sabbath that he entered into the congregation and taught. We find this in other verses as well. So it’s not just these three, but many verses we see Yeshua celebrating and keeping Shabbat.
And this should come as no surprise because Yeshua was our spotless lamb. He was sinless. He did not break anything in the Torah. Remember, sin as defined by scripture is the breaking of the Torah. What is one of those things that is contained within the Torah?
The keeping of the seventh day Sabbath. Yeshua kept the seventh day Sabbath all his life. That’s the example that he set for us, was keeping the seventh day Sabbath. A nerdy point to bring up real quick if you’re a nerd like me. But right here in these verses where it says congregation, it could also say assembly, it could say fellowship, it could say church, or it could even say synagogue.
This is something that’s not really the temple, but just a gathering place where people went together to gather on the Sabbath to read the Torah, to read the scriptures, to learn from a teaching, things like that. That’s what the congregation there means. But this word Sabbath is the Greek word, because now we’re in the Brit Chadashah, is the Greek word g four five two one, Sabaton Sabaton. And it means pretty much what you already think it means. It means the day of rest, the weekly day of rest, the seventh day of the week.
Here’s your outline of biblical usage from blueletterbible.org, and here is your Strong’s definition entry for Sabaton. And here is your Thayer’s Greek Lexicon entry and your Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament. And here is your BDAG entry for the Strong’s number G4521. Sabaton. Sabaton.
And once again, they’re these entries, I cut them way down for the sake of fitting on the slide and also make it easier for you to get the point of what it actually means. But for the full entry, again, go look at the notes that we’ve provided for you on our website at gothonesttruth.com, or once again, just simply click on the link down below in the description. Now, we’ve said before that Yeshua was our spotless lamb because he did not sin. He was sinless, which made him the acceptable sacrifice for our sins. He could not have spot or blemish or else he would not be an acceptable sacrifice.
And like we said, him being sinless, that means he did not sin. He did not break anything of the Torah. And, in fact, he told us directly when he was here that he did not come to destroy the Torah or do away with the Torah. This is a popular one, one you probably already know, but we’ll recover it. I’m sorry.
We’ll cover it again because I think it’s important to go over. This is Matthew five chapters I’m sorry. Matthew chapter five verses 17 through 19. This is Yeshua speaking, and he says, quote, do not think that I have come to destroy the Torah or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to complete.
For truly, I say to you, till the heaven and the earth pass away, one yod or one tittle shall by no means pass from the Torah till all be done. Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches men so shall be called least in the reign of the heavens, but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the reign of the heavens. So Yeshua himself says that he did not come to do away with the Torah. And what’s one of the things in the Torah? The fourth commandment, the commandment about Shabbat.
This is what he told. This is what we read. This is what was recorded. And this was what was learned by his apostles as we go throughout the rest of the Brit Chadashah, even after the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Yeshua, we still see his followers, his taught ones, the ones who went around with him learning from him, we still see them continuing to observe the Sabbath, the seventh day. Not any other day, the Sabbath day.
We look at Acts chapter 13 verse 14. But passing through from Purge, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the congregation on the Sabbath day and sat down. Acts chapter 13 verses 26 through 27. Men, brothers, sons of the race of Abraham, and those among you fearing Elohim, to you the word of this deliverance has been sent for those dwelling in Yerushalayim and their rulers because they did not know him nor even the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath have filled them in having judged him. Acts chapter 13 verse 42.
And when the Yehudim went out of the congregations, the nations begged to have these words spoken to them the next Sabbath. So once again, when during this time in history, when the word Sabbath was used, what would people automatically think of? They would automatically think of the seventh day Sabbath. Nothing else. This is what they were used to.
This is what they were taught, and we can see here what’s one of the things they did every Sabbath. They got together just like we saw Yeshua doing, going to the congregation, going to the meeting place, getting together, reading the Torah, reading the scriptures, learning stuff. Here, the nations, the non Jews, that’s what it’s referring to, they begged the apostles to teach them some more on the next Sabbath. They would come back and learn even more about the gospel, about the Torah. They wanted these words preached to them and talked to them.
When would they do that? They would do that on the Sabbath. So once again, these apostles, these early followers of Yeshua, were meeting together on the Sabbath, not any other day of the week. Then we look at Acts chapter 13 verses 43 through 44. And when the meeting of the congregation had broken up, many of the Yehudim and of the worshiping converts followed Shaul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the favor of Elohim, and on the next Sabbath, almost all the city came together to hear the word of Elohim.
Now listen to this next passage because this is really important. This is something that’s come up time and time again. And if you’ve never understood this correctly, this will open your mind. Acts chapter 15 verses 19 through 21. Therefore, I judge that we should not trouble those from among the nations who are turning to Elohim, but that we write to them to abstain from the defilements of idols and from whoring and from what is strangled and from blood.
Or from ancient generations, Moshe has in every city, those proclaiming him being read in the congregations every Sabbath. So here, we see that they’re having this Jerusalem Council and they’re trying to decide, you know, what should we require of new converts, people just coming into the faith. Well, they tell them there’s four different things that you should immediately stop doing, and that is to abstain from the defilement of idols, to abstain from whoring, to abstain from what is strangled, and to abstain from blood. Then they go on to give a reason for this because there’s other things they should be doing, but they can’t pile everything onto them all at once. They say to start with these four things and then they will learn the rest of the Torah because the rest of the Torah is being preached every Sabbath.
So they tell them, go to the Sabbath I’m sorry, go to the congregation every Sabbath, hear Moshe, hear the Torah every Sabbath, and you will learn bit by bit. And that way, you won’t be overwhelmed all at once. So that’s what it means here in this passage. Now that new converts are they’ll only do four things ever. No.
They are to turn from their sinful ways and learn the Torah, learn the scriptures, learn the word of Yahweh, but here the apostles are telling them, don’t pile it all pile it all on them all at once. Do these four things and then learn over time. We go on, we look again from Acts chapter 17 verse two. And according to his practice, Shaul went in to unto them and for three Sabbaths was reasoning with them from the scriptures. So it was the Apostle Paul or the Apostle Shaul.
It was his practice even after the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Yeshua. It was Shaul’s practice to go into the congregation every Shabbat because they got together every Shabbat because they were resting every Shabbat. Acts chapter 18, verse four. And he was reasoning in the congregation every Sabbath and went over both Yehudim and Greeks. So just to wrap up this little section real quick, we look at number one and we see that Yeshua, the believers, and even the unbelieving Judeans during the time of the Brit Hadashah only knew the Sabbaths to mean one thing, and that means the day of rest, the weekly day of rest, the seventh day of the week.
They didn’t know it by any other meaning, and, of course, the Bible never gives any other meaning for Sabbath. It always means the weekly day of rest or the seventh day of the week. Number two. Yeshua set the example of keeping the Sabbath. He kept the seventh day Sabbath, not the first day Sabbath.
Yeshua kept the seventh day Sabbath, and we should emulate Yeshua. Number three, Yeshua even said that he did not come to do away with the Torah. And what’s one of those things that’s included in the Torah that Yeshua did not do away with? It is the seventh day Sabbath. And we also saw from scripture that the apostles and the first believers during the time of the Brit Chadashah also kept the seventh day Sabbath.
No other day is the seventh day Sabbath. Now mainstream churchgoers, especially some of those teachers and preachers who may be entrenched in this particular subject, They may be bringing up verses over and over saying, well, what about this or what about that or look at this verse. And I understand that. There’s a lot that goes into it. And like I said, we had to cut this way down for the sake of time.
And we’ll be getting into a lot, if not all, of those objections coming up in our Sabbath series probably next year or so. So if you have an objection, by all means, send it in to us. We’ll try to address it. And if not, we’ll put it in our series next year and address it then. But just know that there’s a lot that did not get put into this particular teaching because it is such a vast subject.
Going on, after the time of the Brit Chadasha, we look at some of the history of the Shabbat, especially with early believers, and then some major things happened in the fourth century. Starting out with the book Dialogues on the Lord’s Day by doctor Moore, which is someone from the Church of England, and he wrote this back in seventeen o one. So he’s sort of like a historian, but he writes, quote, the primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted, but they derive this practice from the apostles themselves as appears by several scriptures to the purpose. Here we can see and he’s writing from a historical point of view, but we can look at the early writings and also see that the early believers in Yeshua still observed and kept the seventh day Sabbath.
Now, there were some in the early days who also did a memoriam for the resurrection of Yeshua, and they would do it on the first day of the week, which is not completely accurate. To be more accurate, you would do it three days after Passover, but that’s a subject for another time. Anyways, some of them started remembering the resurrection of Yeshua on the first day of the week, and that eventually became a more common practice and eventually went down through history, became the rationale for trying or thinking they can move the Sabbath to the first day. Anyways, back in the early church or the early believers, they still kept the seventh day Sabbath, the day of rest every week. Not the first day, the seventh day.
But as time went on, things changed, and we get to Constantine or Constantine the Great. And in 03/21, he actually issues an edict, and this is not for the church or for Christians. This is for the empire. Now listen closely to this from Constantine the emperor Constantine in 03/21, quote, on the venerable day of the sun, let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain sowing or for vine planting, lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.
End quote. So this is the edict from Constantine to the Empire stating that those within the Empire should rest on the Venerable Day of the Sun, as he puts it. Which day of that? I’m sorry. Which day is that?
As the first day of the week, Sunday as we know it. How do we get the name Sunday? It’s named after the sun god, the name after the sun in the sky. That’s just the truth. Most of our English names for the days of the week come from pagan gods, and Sunday is no different.
And Constantine was a sun god worshiper. He worshiped Sol Invictus. And in honor of his pagan worshiping of the sun god, before he even gets into this whole Catholic church thing in 03/25 with Council of Nicaea. Before all that, he issues an empirical decree for the Roman Empire that they are to rest on the day of the sun god, the first day of the week. So that kind of starts it out, and then we get more Gentiles and non Hebrews coming into the faith, and they bring their customs and traditions with them.
Instead of discarding them at the door like they should have. They bring their pagan ways of thinking in with them. This is one of those things that crept in with those new converts. But we look at also another quote from Jeremy Taylor and his work the whole works of Jeremy Taylor rather. And here we see, quote, the primitive Christians did keep the Sabbath of the Jews.
Therefore, the Christians for a long time together did keep their conventions upon the Sabbath in which some portions of the law were read, and this continued till the time of the Laodicean council, end quote. So once again, we see that the early believers kept the seventh day Sabbath, not the first day, not Sunday. They kept the seventh day Sabbath. Then we get the Edict of Constantine telling the empire to rest on the Sabbath, but that did not necessarily apply to Christianity, not even at the Council of Nicaea in 03/25. That was to deal with a whole other slew of things like the well, anyways, we won’t get into that, but it did not address the whole Sabbath issue.
The Sabbath issue really didn’t come into play until the Council of Laodicea as referenced here, and that happened in March or AD. And it kinda starts out good. We get to canon 16 of the Council of Laodicea, and they state, quote, the gospels are to be read on the Sabbath, meaning Saturday, with the other scriptures. So you’re thinking, okay, Catholic council, and they’re saying the word Sabbath, and it means, you know, seventh day of the week, and they’re saying, let’s read scripture on the Sabbath. That’s that’s great.
Maybe they’re still keeping the seventh day Sabbath, but nope. We go on down to canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea, and they state, quote, Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day rather honoring the Lord’s day, and if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be Judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ. So here in this Catholic decree, Canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea, they say that Christians must not and cannot observe Yahweh’s Sabbath. They’re saying that Christians should not and cannot follow scripture.
That’s exactly what they’re saying. They’re thinking they have the power and the authority to change the day of the Sabbath, and they don’t. Because, again, what does Sabbath mean? It means day of rest. Here, the Catholic church is saying, do not rest on the day of rest.
They think they have the authority to change that. They say that you must work on that day and totally contradict scripture. So that’s where it really starts where I can really find it starting anyways. There is some controversy about what the phrase Lord’s Day actually means and when it actually started meaning first day of the week. But here in March, about that time, it should mean the first day of the week at that point because you can see here the contrast with Sabbath, and Sabbath, of course, means seventh day of the week.
So just a little wrap up for this section. In contrast with Sunday, as we think of it nowadays and the mainstream churchianity view on Sabbath. In contrast with the whole Sunday as Sabbath notion, we’re never told to remember the first day of the week. Once again, if I happen to miss something, let me know in the comments below or email us something like that, but we’re never in scripture, not once told to remember the first day of the week. The first day is never once in scripture referred to as a day of rest.
The first day is never referred to in scripture as a memoriam of anything. We’re not even told in scripture that it’s a memoriam of the resurrection of Christ. I mean, that may sound horrid, but it’s the truth. We’re not told in scripture that Sunday or the first day is a memoriam of the resurrection of Christ. We’re not told it’s a memoriam of anything.
We’re just told it’s the first day of the week. In contrast with Sunday, we’re never told that the first day like the other five work days is referred to by a number and has no special name. The first day in scripture is always referred to as the first day. It’s never referred to as the new Sabbath. It’s never referred to by any other name except for the first day of the week.
And it’s just like the other five work days. Sunday, the first day of the week, is a work day, not a rest day, not a Sabbath day. It’s a work day. And the first day is not a sign of anything and is never referred to as a sign of anything. It’s never referred to as a covenant between us and Yeshua.
It’s never referred to as a sign between us and Yahweh. Nothing like that. And the first day is never referred to as being blessed by Yahweh or blessed by anyone else in scripture. It’s just referred to as the like the other five workdays, this is referred to as the first day. And finally, to say that the Sabbath or the day of rest was changed to Sunday is simply an exercise in exegesis, which means that you’re reading into scripture or reading into the text what it is that you want it to say.
Now once again, we didn’t put it in this teaching for the sake of time, but if you wanna see the quotes, you can go look at the notes that we took for the subject on our website, godhonesttruth.com. And there are a ton of quotes on there from Catholics saying, yeah, we changed it. We had the authority. We overrule scripture. We changed the Sabbath.
Don’t believe me? Go look at our notes. There’s almost 80 pages, but it’s there. They’re just blatant about it. They say, yeah.
We changed they think they had the authority to change the Sabbath, and they fully admit that. But they didn’t. But for those of us who are Protestants, non Catholics, to say that the Sabbath has been changed to Sunday to the first day of the week and then try to provide scripture, it never works. Not when you look at it and you take it into context and you perform proper hermeneutics. No.
To say it’s been changed to Sunday is just an eisegesis. It’s a reading into the text what you want it to say instead of what the text of scripture actually says. So, in summary, the fourth commandment carries the same weight and authority as murder, adultery, and idolatry. That’s how serious Yahweh wants us to take the fourth commandment about the Sabbath. Sadly, the fourth commandment, like we said, is often the least remembered and the least observed, if ever observed, in modern Christian practice.
It is the only one of the 10 commandments that we are specifically told to remember. The Sabbath is designated as a day of rest. That’s what Sabbath means. It means rest, not work, rest. The Sabbath day refers to the seventh day of the week, and every single instance in scripture where the word Sabbath is used, it’s referring to that seventh day of the week.
Not the first, the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a memoriam of the rest that Yahweh took at the end of the creation week. The Sabbath is a sign between Yahweh and those who are his people, even the foreigners who join up. It’s not an ethnic thing. It’s not a genetic DNA thing.
No. It’s all those who want to be in covenant with and worship and serve Yahweh, including observing and guarding and setting making holy his Sabbath. We’re told that Yahweh specifically blessed the seventh day Sabbath. Not the first day, the seventh day. He blessed the Sabbath day.
Yeshua set the example of keeping the Sabbath, and we should emulate Yeshua’s example and keep the seventh day Sabbath. The apostles and the first believers, they also kept the seventh day Sabbath, not the first day. The early believers kept the Sabbath. Again, we had to cut it down for the sake of time, but look at the evidence from the early believers, those in within the first, second, third centuries. They kept the seventh day Sabbath, not the first day.
And the seventh day Sabbath of scripture is an everlasting, meaning forever, covenant and sign between Yahweh and his people. And that’s just the God honest truth.
