FIRST QUARTER 2023
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #8
MAY 20, 2023
“THE SABBATH AND THE END”

 

“You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:30 and 26:2, NKJV).

 

“You must observe My Sabbaths.  This will be a sign between Me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, Who makes you holy” (Exodus 31:13, NIV).

 

God is the author of space and time, in which His creation dwells.  Moreover, God has set apart certain places and times as holy (e.g., Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Exodus 3:5; Genesis 28:11-17). What makes time or space holy?  It is the presence of the Divine for God is holy.

 

God’s sanctuary and God’s sanctuary in time, the seventh-day Sabbath, are two sacred institutions Satan hates.  It is not difficult to discern why this is so.  The truths embedded in the sanctuary and the Sabbath reveal the character of our eternal other-centered God.  God lives to bless and impart His rich gifts to His creatures.

 

In Revelation 13:6 we read that the dragon gave authority to the beast who “blasphemes God, His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven.” An attack on the Sabbath is an attack on its author and His authority over His creation.  Thus, Satan maligns God’s name (His character and identity) by attempting to do away with His holy day.

 

Since the seventh-day Sabbath will be the controverted truth in earth’s last great conflict to take place just prior to Christ’s second coming, it is essential that we understand and appreciate the Sabbath in the light of the three angels’ messages.

 

It should not surprise us that Revelation’s three angels’ messages and their surrounding passages (the context of the messages) mention or hint at all the truths so foundational to our faith: the everlasting gospel (at the heart of every other truth), an end time heavenly judgment, the sanctuary, the great controversy, creation, Creator versus creature worship, death as sleep, the second coming, the faith of Jesus, and the commandments of God.  The first angel’s message calls our attention to the fourth commandment.  “Worship Him Who made heaven, and earth, and the sea and the fountains of waters” (Revelation 14:7).

 

God alone can create life by speaking (Psalms 33:6, 9).  Ever since Satan’s apostasy, his desire has been to usurp God’s rightful rulership.  Since the Sabbath is a sign of both God’s creative and redemptive power, it is no wonder that the devil has attacked the Sabbath and attempted to obscure its true meaning.

 

One question, though, that we might ask is this: Why has the enemy chosen Sunday as a counterfeit deception?

 

Satan would have most professed Christians believe that Sunday is to be honored because our Lord rose as victor from the grave on this day.  Yet, Satan did all in his power to keep Jesus in the tomb and prevent the resurrection!

 

Before he was cast out of Heaven, Lucifer was the “shining one or light-bearer.”  He was the most highly honored of the angelic host.  There came a point in time, however, when he was not content with the great honor bestowed upon him as covering cherub.  He wanted more.  Not content with reflecting God’s light and glory, he wanted to be God (Isaiah 14:12-14).  He wanted the light and glory that belong to the Godhead exclusively.

 

The light which emanates from God is life to His creation.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).  John the Baptist came as a witness to the light but was not himself the light (John 1:6-8).  The Word was “the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:9).

 

Yes, God is light.  “He alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16).  “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

 

God’s very first act on the first day of the creation week was to speak light into existence for our world.  “Then God said, ‘Let there be light and there was light’” (Genesis 1:3).

 

God spoke all life into existence, but on the 6th day Elohim formed Adam with His own hands and breathed life into humanity, the crowning work of His creation.  God desired intimate communion with mankind who was created in His own image.  He gifted human beings with God-like qualities, and gave the care of the earth into their hands.

 

The Sabbath completed the seven-day creation.  Man was to enter into God’s rest by observing his Maker’s sacred time.  Adam and Eve had done nothing to merit the gift of life and their beautiful abode.  The Sabbath was to be a reminder of this.  It would be a special 24-hour period at the end of each week for humanity to commune with their Creator.  Through fellowship with Him and by meditating upon His created works their understanding and appreciation of God’s character would grow and expand.

 

Since the Adversary’s desire is to remove God from His throne, originate his own light, and create, it comes as no surprise that he hates the Sabbath and has attempted to replace it with the first day of the week.  The Sabbath is a weekly reminder that God is Creator and Sustainer of all life.  The Sabbath is also a reminder of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.  In providing atonement, God covenanted to provide Sabbath rest for His creation betrayed into sin.

 

To the seventh and final church of Revelation Jesus identifies Himself as, “The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3:14).  Several false belief systems and ideologies have been promulgated and advanced since 1844, all of which attempt to deny the God of the Bible, the Author of life.

 

Humanity’s departure from God has and continues to bring untold confusion and misery.  “Is there any hope for the world?” many are asking.  The way is being prepared for the Deceiver’s last great deception.  Satan will impersonate Christ.  He will declare a false gospel, and a false day of worship.  He will “transform himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

 

God’s last day Remnant have been blessed with an amazingly beautiful gospel message that is to lighten the earth with God’s glory.  The Sabbath truth is integrally a part of this gospel message for the Sabbath teaches in a very practical way righteousness by faith.  By observing the seventh day we acknowledge that man originates nothing.  God provides and supplies everything.  We rest in His provisions.  We trust in His redemptive and creative power.

 

The following comments by Waggoner are a great help in seeing and understanding the vital connection between creation, the Sabbath, and the gospel:

 

The cross conveys to us the knowledge of God, because it shows us His power as Creator. Through the cross we are crucified unto the world, and the world unto us; that is, by the cross we are sanctified. But sanctification is the work of God, not of man. Only His divine power can accomplish the great work. In the beginning God sanctified the Sabbath, as the crown of His creative work—the evidence that His work was finished, the seal of perfection, and therefore He says, "Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Ezekiel 20:12.

 

So, we see that the Sabbath—the seventh day—is the true sign of the cross. It is the memorial of creation, and redemption is creation, —creation through the cross. In the cross we find the complete and perfect works of God, and are clothed with them. Crucified with Christ means the utter giving up of self, acknowledging that we are nothing, and trusting absolutely in Christ. In Him we rest; in Him we find the Sabbath. The cross takes us back to the beginning, into "that which was from the beginning." The resting upon the seventh day of the week is but the sign of the fact that in the perfect work of God, as seen in creation, —in the cross, —we find rest from sin. — E. J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, Ch. 6, p. 2.

 

CREATION IN THE GOSPEL

"Worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." These words take our minds back to the creation. They call us away from the theories of self-glorifying scientists to the Bible record of creation, and bid us worship the Creator. If we are going to have a part in the everlasting Gospel, we must give the honor and the glory to God, and so we inquire how God would have us worship Him as the Creator. We turn back to the record, and we read that as soon as the work of the Creator was finished, "He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Genesis 2:2, 3.

 

THE STANDARD UPLIFTED

Adam and Eve were the only human beings alive. They were unfallen and they rested with God from all His works, worshipping and adoring Him Who had made them and delighting in communion with Him. The seventh day was blessed and sanctified, or set apart, to be observed by all God’s children forever, in the worship of Him Who made heaven and earth. The Sabbath was not for any particular portion of Adam’s descendants. It was for all. "The Sabbath was made for man." Mark 2:27. Those who did not desire to retain the knowledge of God might refuse to honor Him, by keeping holy the day He had set apart for worship, but the household of faith was to keep it forever. "Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you." It was to be "a perpetual covenant." "It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed." Exodus 31:13-17.

 

We find that in the new earth, where the righteous will dwell in the ages to come, the perpetual covenant of the Sabbath will be regarded. "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord." Isaiah 66:23.

 

THE GOSPEL SABBATH

God is now gathering out a people, to be prepared for the Lord’s coming, to carry His Gospel throughout the earth, and be a glory to His name. His Word will be the standard for each one, and He is now revealing defects and errors wherever they exist in order that those who love and honor Him may forsake their own ways, and come "in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Ephesians 5:13.

 

Many have seen that the seventh day, and not the first, is the Sabbath of the Lord, and that in keeping the Sunday they are not worshipping their Creator and Redeemer, but showing honor to men. Yet they hesitate to obey God because of the fear that they will lose situations or business or friends. They put these before the Lord. But the call is to "Fear God, and give glory to Him." How can we say we are giving glory to God, as the Creator of the universe and the One Who supplies the wants of every living thing, when we are afraid to obey His voice for fear we may lose our living? Whom are we giving glory to, then? Plainly to some man, either ourselves or our employers. If we will really give to God the glory due to Him, we shall know that He keeps us now and supplies our needs, and we will not be so faithless as to think that the man who does not fear God is more sure of a living than the man who obeys Him.

 

It is only when such a test comes to us that we realize how little we know of the true God, and how much He has been to us but an empty name. But now God calls to a higher experience, that His servants may be sealed with the seal of the living God. Revelation 7:1-3. —E. J. Waggoner, The Present Truth, Vol. 19, No. 36, Sept. 3, 1903, pp. 564-565.

 

The final end-time test is not merely about which day - the seventh day or the first day of the week.  It is about worship, and we must understand the stakes involved.  The day reveals our loyalty to either the eternal Creator God, Who alone can save and redeem; or the great deceiver who is the enemy and destroyer.

 

“In the last great conflict of the controversy with Satan, those who are loyal to God will see every earthly support cut off.” --Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 121.

 

Those loyal to God will understand experientially the full meaning of the Sabbath as never before.  This group of people will fully rest in Christ, trusting Him to provide every physical, mental, and spiritual need.  Their glory will truly be laid in the dust, and God’s law will be written on their hearts.  “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12).

 

Inspiration tells us that as the storm gathers God’s people will be filled with the Holy Spirit and go forth to “proclaim the Sabbath more fully.” –Ellen G. White, Early Writings, p. 33.

 

What does it mean to proclaim the seventh-day Sabbath more fully?

 

I believe a heart appreciation of the “most precious message” will change the way God’s people view and keep the Sabbath.  They will see the Sabbath as a delight because they will delight in the Lord of the Sabbath.  They will be empowered by the Spirit to proclaim the Sabbath more fully.  (Recommended reading: Prophets and Kings by Ellen White, Chapter 14, “In the Spirit and Power of Elias”).

 

Very soon the church of God is to enter her final conflict.  By God’s grace may we truly rest in our Savior’s love.  May we direct others to the Savior of the world, the source of abundant living and true rest.

 

~ Martha Ruggles