Feasts of YHVH: Sabbath pt 3

So looking at our 6 days: 1 Sabbath correllation, do we see this period of rest coming?...continued

2Th 1:6 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
10 When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

You bet there is rest coming, from what? All who trouble us. When? When Yeshua is revealed from Heaven!

Heb 4:1 We may fear, then, lest a promise being left of entering into His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short,
2 for we also are having good news proclaimed, even as they, but the word heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard,
3 for we do enter into the rest--we who did believe, as He said, `So I sware in My anger, If they shall enter into My rest--;' and yet the works were done from the foundation of the world,

I use the YLT here because I think it’s easier to understand in this passage. He says we may fear lest we fall short of entering his rest. Why? Because they heard the word and failed because they heard without faith. Because those that do believe, enter; but not the unbelievers (see 3:18)…they didn’t enter even though the work was already done.

Heb 4:4 for He spake in a certain place concerning the seventh day thus: `And God did rest in the seventh day from all His works;'
5 and in this place again, `If they shall enter into My rest--;'
6 since then, it remaineth for certain to enter into it, and those who did first hear good news entered not in because of unbelief--

It’s already done because it is written God rested from his work on the seventh day…does that mean he finished all his work back then? How did he, when Yeshua said the Father works even to the present (John 5:17). The writer adds “if” they shall enter because those who “did first hear the good news entered not…” The work is complete if we continue in belief. In other words, the promise is safe and secure. The promised land is waiting for us...all we have to do is continue in belief. God apparently keeps working because we do not all continue in belief. In other words, the Sabbath of rest could come if only we all believe.

Heb 4:7 again He doth limit a certain day, `To-day,' (in David saying, after so long a time,) as it hath been said, `To-day, if His voice ye may hear, ye may not harden your hearts,'
8 for if Joshua had given them rest, He would not concerning another day have spoken after these things;
9 there doth remain, then, a sabbatic rest to the people of God,
10 for he who did enter into his rest, he also rested from his works, as God from His own.

David in Psalm 95 says “today” generations after Joshua brought them into the promised land says do not harden your hearts as your fathers did, why? Because he sware not to let them enter into rest because of their unbelief. David apparently sees this as an ongoing danger and apparently the writer of Hebrews agrees saying. “There doth remain, then, a sabbatic rest to the people of God…” Why? Because if we had entered that rest we would stop working just as God would and did.

The Sabbath is a prophecy of the span of man…or at least his first span. That as God rested after six, we rest on the seventh testifying that he did. And that is the sign that YHVH sanctifies us and thus like him when our six days are complete, like him we will rest.

When is this Sabbath, when is this completion that ends our work?

Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

There is our Sabbath. We rest when evil is put down and Messiah reigns and we under him. And it gets even better! A new week!

Satan gets loosed for a little time, but God judges him. Notice there is no talk of our battling in a second Armageddon; God annihilates them himself. And then what?
Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

What else do we know about this new Earth?

2Pe 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

After our coming Shabbat, we start on a new week on a resurrected Earth! So that’s what Sabbath is about. Do we see how singular it is? All of the feasts are, but the Sabbath especially because within the first seven days God had laid out the future of humanity’s first week!

Not all of this is well understood, after all there are many of the physical children of Israel who have not embraced Messiah, so there are many traditions based on interpretations of how to keep Shabbat sanctified. And that is what they all amount to, setting the Shabbat as holy from all other days.

We just set out to remember the Shabbat and encounter YHVH on that day. And I tell you what, when you do it makes a difference. Because you have the world going on and it doesn’t stop, it doesn’t even know what’s going on. “Shabbat? What’s that?” So when you take this time to repose, to do no work and say this day is not the same, its as if you’re stepping out of the world for a moment. In fact, it’s not just what you’re not doing (work, business) but when you really start to pursue God in this time, you feel that peace and when you don’t get it…say you let some function which really isn’t about God encroach on the time you’ve set aside, you feel it. It’s like “Where’d the Sabbath go?” You actually look forward to it.

And why is that? Because the Sabbath is a gift (Exo 16:29), the only sanctified day; the only blessed day; the only day that is a sign between you and YHVH that he sanctifies you just as he made the Earth by his word in six days and rested on the Seventh.

Mar 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

The Sabbath was not given to us because the Sabbath needed us, but because we needed the Sabbath.