LifeLink Devotions for Friday, October 11, 2024

The first time we read about a Sabbath day in Scripture is at the time God gives the Israelites directions on gathering the manna He is providing for them as food every morning. At creation we were told that on the seventh day God rested from His work of creation, but until now there has been nothing said about the people doing the same. God has not yet given Moses the Ten Commandments, which included a command to honor the Sabbath day. This is the introduction of the principle of Sabbath rest to the Israelites and to all of us.

Exodus 16:23-26  “This is what the LORD commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’” So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”

God makes it possible for the people to be nourished for a period of two days so that on the second day they do not need to labor. The manna they gathered on Friday would not spoil and be sufficient to cover the needs of Saturday.

In this I see a picture of our salvation, and the permanence of it. As we discovered previously the manna God gave the Israelites is a symbol of the covering of sin God provides for us every day in the Person of Jesus Christ. But we do not need to pick up the manna of salvation every day. It is not necessary to be saved from our sin over and over again. He showed us this in the creation of the Sabbath. We understand this when we discover the truth of Hebrews 4:9-10, which says, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.”

The teaching of Hebrews 4 can be summarized this way: once we realize that it is not by works that we are saved, and by faith we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and are covered by His blood, we enter the permanent rest of eternal security. God was illustrating to the Israelites that one day His mercy and grace would cover permanently all sin and there would be no need to work for it any longer. Once the gift of grace was given on the day before the Sabbath it was sufficient for all the needs of the next day. Once the sacrifice of Jesus was given it was sufficient for the spiritual needs of the whole world, and anyone who collects that gift enters the permanent rest of salvation.

The Old Testament gives us the pictures of New Testament salvation fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The institution of the Sabbath day was not intended to be a legalistic demand on our lives, but rather to be a picture of the completeness of our salvation by faith in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The Sabbath was instituted to show the people they can totally depend upon God for their lives. When we depend upon the gift of God in Jesus Christ for our salvation, separated from any work of our own, we enter the permanent rest of eternal life. We do not need to obey the legal demands of the Old Testament Sabbath to be a recipient of the blessings of salvation. In fact, the blessings of salvation allow us the freedom to celebrate every day as a Sabbath, for we are at permanent spiritual rest with our God. 

Spend some time today celebrating the permanence of your salvation!

Pastor John