In this sermon, you are going to learn about the spiritual meaning of the sabbath day in the bible.
This sermon is going to reveal to you that we are still on the sixth day of creation; where God created them both male and female to be like Himself.
Logically, it is believed that God used 7 days in creating the world and everything in it; and on the 7th day – called the sabbath day, he rested.
But this sermon is going to prove to you beyond reasonable doubt that we are not yet on the sabbath day. We are still in the 6th day when God created human beings, male and female to be like Himself.
What is the sabbath day according to the Bible?
According to the Bible in Genesis 2;1-2, the Sabbath day is 7th day on which God rested after using 6 days to create everything on Earth.
As everyone seem to believe, especially the Jews, the Sabbath day was originally gone because God had rounded up His work of creation after He finished creating human beings on the 6th day.
But as we are going to see in this sermon, the Sabbath day is not yet because we are still on the 6th day where God is busy everyday creating human beings who are going to be like Himself.
Now let’s move on from one point to the other in order to fully understand what am trying to reveal here.
The creation story.
First and foremost in Genesis 1:3-5, we discover how God started the creation process by creating light.
And immediately saw that the light was good, He divided it from darkness; which was already covering the face of the deep.
After doing all that, God, according to the scriptures; called the light- day, and the darkness- night.
Thus, the light began in the morning till evening, where the darkness took over till the break of dawn.
The completion of these two creations made God have his first day of creation.
And the other six days give us the complete 7 days of creation, and hence the 7 days of creation theory.
The 7 days creation theory.
Now, it is this one-day creation theory that causes a lot of misunderstanding in God’s art of creation.
Because; human beings naturally consider this one day of creation to be like the ordinary day we have here on earth.
I want you to understand that God’s one day was; is still never and will never be like the ordinary day we have here on earth.
What am trying to say here is that it might have taken God thousands, or maybe millions of years to finish a particular creation.
But He will always consider or call it one day, because, God does not experience sunrise and sunset; i.e the counting of days and nights, as we humans do.
“For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, And like a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4)
“But beloved do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. (2 Peter 3:8)
As we can firmly understand now, whether it is a thousand years that God uses to do anything, He will always consider it one day.
And whether it is one day that He uses to do anything, He will always consider it a thousand years.
What causes the day and night cycle on Earth?
Logically, we do not have days and nights on Earth because according to scientists; the day and nights we experience is as a result of our Earth rotating around the solar system.
That is why a particular country or place will experience day, while another experiences night, all at the same time.
This fact then brings us to the perfect understanding that since every place does not experience day and night at the same time; God will never consider nor count days and nights as we humans do here on earth.
Therefore, the mystery we have just uncovered brings us to the understanding that it might have taken God (according to our human calculation); thousands of years to create each and everything we can see as outlined in the scriptures.
- First day: light from darkness i.e. day and night (Genesis 1:3-5)
- Second day: the firmaments i.e. heaven (Genesis 1:6-8)
- Third day: waters and dry land i.e. the earth (Genesis 1:9-13)
- Fourth day: lights in the firmaments i.e. stars, sun, and moon (Genesis 1:13-19)
- Fifth day: living creatures, excluding man (Genesis 1:20-23)
- Sixth day: man in His own (God’s) image and likeness (Genesis 1:24-31)
- Now, according to the scriptures, God is supposed to end his work on the seventh day and take a rest. (Genesis 2:1-2)
It has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the world has already been in existence for thousands of years; even before human beings came to be.
And this fact goes to prove that there has been a first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and now the SIXTH DAY; (which is still ongoing) i.e. the day of our own (human) creation.
And with this reality in mind, let me quickly present to you the mystery in the 7 days creation story.
Beloved Genesis is not yet fulfilled!
God has not ended His work!!
He has not yet rested!!!
So therefore we are still on the SIXTH DAY.
What is the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath?
The spiritual meaning of the Sabbath is that God is someday going to rest from His work when He has perfected everything He created, especially human beings.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was all along trying to reveal this mystery behind the spiritual meaning of the sabbath day to the Jews when He; on several occasions, performed miracles on the Sabbath day- a day the Jews misunderstood as the day God finished His art of creation and rested.
Now let us consult the scriptures to ascertain this fact.
For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”(John 5:17)
Now let’s underline those words of Christ- “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.
If the Father has been working until now, and our Lord Jesus has also been working; why should we then think that the art of creation has been completed by the Father?
After His death, resurrection, and ascension, our Lord Jesus Christ, the mystery of God, revealed to us through the apostle Paul; that the Sabbath day was just a shadow of the things to come.
Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.(Colossians 2:16-17)
Therefore, every blessed second – whether day or night – we must live with the knowledge that our God and His Christ are working.
They are busy creating human beings; both male and female, through a process we call birth: as the scripture confirms:
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27).
What is the image and likeness of God in humans?
Now there is a very important point to note here because; most of us always consider our physical nature to be the image and likeness of God.
But the scripture opposes such when it says:
God is not a man, that he should lie. (Numbers 23:19).
For he is not a man, that He should repent. (1 Samuel 15:29).
And goes on to uncover to us the image and likeness of God when it says:
“God is a Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth. (John 4:24).
In order for us to ascertain this fact, let us go back to the story of man’s creation; where we will quickly discover that man is made up of two parts:
1. The dust on the ground and
2. The breath of life; also known as the Spirit or the air that God blew into the nostrils of Adam after giving him a physical body.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)
As we now discover from the above passage, man was never a living being until he was given the breath of life by His creator.
Thus it is that Spiritual composition of man that is the image and likeness of God, and not the physical body or the mortal flesh which cannot even please God.
So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:8).
And when we now bring this knowledge into the light of this mystery of God’s art of creation, we will gain the understanding that flesh is the substance that God uses to transform every human He must create (both male and female) into His image and likeness.
That is to say, before any human being becomes like God, he must first and foremost enter the flesh, which represents the earth where he will live, to learn and absorb the attributes of God.
Most importantly, he must come to the knowledge of that which builds and that which destroys i.e. good and evil.
And after coming to that knowledge, he must then make use of the power of choice i.e. freewill to either cling to the good; which will qualify him into Gods image and likeness
Or cling to evil; which will deprive him of the opportunity of becoming like God; when this sixth day of creation is completed.
Why the dust and spirit separate.
Thus one by one, in different times and locations, uncountable humans must walk the surface of the earth where they will each strive to become like God, using the theory we examined above.
And once each of their cycles is completed, they must do away with the flesh which is of the earth, their temporary abode, and sojourn to their creator where their eternal fate will be determined based on the results of their test.
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10).
The resurrection of Jesus is the proof of the sabbath day.
In order to prove to us how true this is, God, at His own set time; resurrected His very mystery, Jesus Christ, Whom He sent down to earth in the human body to reveal to mankind His mysteries that have been hidden for ages, as we saw earlier in the scriptures.
When you study the bible in Mathew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20 and 21 you will be surprised to discover that God resurrected our Lord Jesus a day after the Jewish Sabbath.
Knowing that the Jewish Sabbath was always observed on Saturday, you will understand that Sunday is the rightful Sabbath that God is going to rest.
And with this revelation, it is easy to understand why the current world begins its calendar week on Monday and ends on Sunday, prior to the ancient Jewish calendar which had Sunday as the first and Saturday as the last day of the week.
Eternal life.
Finally, we must understand that all human beings who have followed the example of this man Jesus will resurrect in the same body He did, which is the image and likeness of God, to enjoy eternal life or immortality in God’s eternal world when this world of test or temporary world have surely passed away.
And a new heaven and earth comes down from God. Revelation 21:1-7
But sadly those who couldn’t make it here will be cast into the eternal darkness that was there before creation, where the habitual demons will torment them in eternal fire forever without ceasing.
‘But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8)
Therefore, those of us who have been blessed with this spiritual understanding, and believe the truth thereof; are waiting to be molded into God’s true image and likeness.
(God is Spirit… John 4:24) and that is when we will enter the SEVENTH DAY, known as the sabbath day when God is finally going to rest.
The old covenant makes way for the new one.
‘Behold the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-“not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD.
“For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, says the LORD: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
“None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘ know the LORD’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the Greatest of them.
“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more. In that He says “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.(Hebrews 8:8-13)
The old covenant is in the very age that we are now, and once God is done with the creation of man and transforms them all into his image and likeness; as he has already used our Lord Jesus to set an example, the new covenant will be established and God will finally rest on the seventh day.
He has already given us this proof through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus on Sunday.
Conclusion.
And as we can see; we are already approaching the end of the age, and God is almost done with the sixth day.
So are you set to be made into his image and likeness and enter into the sabbath day.