Back in 2021, a friend of popular commentator Charlie Kirk encouraged him to look into the Sabbath. So Kirk studied the Bible and concluded that the seventh-day Sabbath was in fact a biblical command. He began observing it each week, Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, and found his life far happier and more fulfilling.
Kirk was writing a book on the subject at the time of his tragic assassination this past September. Since his death, many people have looked more seriously into what he believed and taught, and the Sabbath has gained more attention.
Have you studied this subject? Can you prove whether Christians should observe the seventh-day Sabbath? Do you keep it?
Kirk is to be commended for studying the Bible and accepting some of its plain teachings. The world would be a better place if more people did that, rather than ignoring it or simply assuming that what most churches teach, such as Sunday worship, is correct.
Though Kirk was aware of the Sabbath for only a few years, God’s true Church has been keeping the seventh-day Sabbath since its inception in a.d. 31—and as God’s obedient and faithful people have done since God created it at the start of human history.
The Sabbath holds a wonderful, inspiring vision that each of us needs if we are to always keep growing spiritually. Without vision, we perish (Proverbs 29:18). And this is a specific vision we all need to capture.
‘Keep It Holy’
Here is the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11).
This commandment points us back to Genesis 2:2-3, which conclude the creation account: “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it ….”
Jesus Christ categorized the Ten Commandments into two great commands: love toward God and love toward neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40). The first four of the ten amplify what He called “the first and great commandment,” and the last six amplify the second. So the Sabbath is part of what it means to love God. It is deeply important to God because of what it pictures.
How do we keep the Sabbath “holy”? Herbert W. Armstrong answered this question in his booklet Which Day Is the Christian Sabbath? (free upon request).
When God called Moses, He first arrested his attention with a burning bush that was not consumed. God then called to him, saying, “Moses, Moses. … [P]ut off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3:2-5). What made that particular bit of ground holy, and why was Moses to treat it with such respect? Mr. Armstrong explained that it was because “God’s very presence was in that ground! God is holy! God’s presence in that bush made the ground around it holy!
“In the very same manner, God’s presence is in His Sabbath. He rested on that first Sabbath to put His presence in that day! This made it holy time!” (Which Day Is the Christian Sabbath?).
When Jesus Christ walked the Earth, He still kept the Sabbath holy. And to this day, God still puts His presence in His Sabbath and expects us to treat it accordingly. “Moses was commanded, by the Eternal, to take his shoes off that holy ground. Disobedience would have been sin, with the penalty eternal death,” Mr.Armstrong continued. “Mankind is commanded, by the same Eternal, to take his foot off from trampling over and profaning God’s holy day! God requires His children to treat that holy time with a respect not required in other time.”
This day is important to God, and He is upset when we trample on it or treat it casually.
Millennial Rest
There is an astonishing spiritual parallel with God’s master plan for man.
God has ordained a period of 7,000 years in which to accomplish His spiritual creation of mankind here on Earth. The time pattern is revealed in the seven-day week. As 2 Peter 3:8 says, a thousand years is as a “day” to God.
For the first 6,000 years, God has allowed Satan to rule on Earth. In Mystery of the Ages, Mr. Armstrong explained the crucial prehistory that led to this decision. Suffice it to say here that man has rejected God’s law and government and gone the way of Satan. The result has been 6,000 years of pain, suffering and agony! But that time is almost over.
As Mr. Armstrong explained, uppermost in God’s mind is the restoration of His government on Earth (e.g. Acts 3:19-21). That is exactly what He is about to do. Christ and the resurrected saints are about to rule over the Earth for a thousand years (e.g. Revelation 20:4). Thus, the weekly Sabbath foreshadows the coming millennial “Sabbath”—the seventh millennial “day” in God’s 7,000-year “week.” (Read more about this in Gerald Flurry’s booklet The Epistles of Peter—A Living Hope). The Sabbath ties right in to God’s great purpose of restoring His government to Earth!
This astonishing connection is reinforced in Hebrews 3 and 4. There, the Apostle Paul quotes God as saying He would not allow the sinful nation of Israel to enter “my rest”—the Promised Land, which is a type of God’s Kingdom (Hebrews 3:11). Verses 17-19 say the Israelites couldn’t enter that “rest” because of unbelief. Then in Hebrews 4:1, Paul explicitly uses “rest” to refer to God’s Kingdom. Our “rest” is the spiritual Promised Land—the Kingdom of God.
Paul then makes an additional analogy, linking that ultimate “rest” with “the seventh day”—the weekly Sabbath: “… And God did rest the seventh day from all his works” (verse 4). This refers directly to the first weekly Sabbath day as a type of the “rest” referred to throughout this passage. The weekly Sabbath clearly pictures God’s government ruling on Earth during the Millennium, when mankind will have rest from Satan’s rule.
“Labor to get this vision into your mind,” Mr. Flurry writes. “Make it personal. Spend more time on the Sabbath thinking and praying about it, and ask God to help you. You will never give up spiritually if you maintain a strong Sabbath-day vision!” (The Book of Hebrews; emphasis added throughout).
The Promised Land “rest” that Israel finally entered symbolizes our spiritual “rest” of entering (being born into) the divine Kingdom, or Family, of God and living forever. But because Israel rebelled and polluted God’s Sabbaths, God prevented the generation that escaped Egypt from entering the Promised Land. The lesson for us is that we will not enter the Kingdom of God if we do not keep the Sabbath holy.
“The Sabbath is a key to overcoming and spiritual conversion. … Physically, the Sabbath is a rest day each week—but God wants us to labor spiritually on that day. This is not natural: We must dig into our Bibles and labor to learn the wonderful truths God wants to teach us. We must get to know Him, grasp this vision and His plan for mankind, and learn how to rule the world! Our Sabbath observance helps determine whether or not we become teachers for God” (ibid).
Now notice verses 9-10: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.” Everywhere else in Hebrews 3 and 4, “rest” is translated from the Greek word katapausin. However, in Hebrews 4:9, “rest” comes from the Greek sabbatismos, which literally means “keeping of a Sabbath”!
Here is proof that true Christians keep the Sabbath as a weekly foreshadow of their future “rest” in the Kingdom—our Promised Land!
The Lamsa translation makes it clear: “It is therefore the duty of the people of God to keep the Sabbath.” There remains a sabbatismos—keeping of the Sabbath day—for God’s people today. And we, spiritual Israelites, will enter the future “rest” of God’s Kingdom just as surely as we observe the weekly Sabbath that points to it!
The Kingdom of God is pictured as a “rest” because as divine members in God’s Family, we will be at rest from sin. When born of God’s Spirit, we will be free from our present struggles against sin. We will possess the fullness of the mind and character of God and thus be able to remain sinless forever (1 John 3:9). We will possess a radiant, powerful spirit body like Christ and the Father now have, no longer limited by weak, mortal bodies that tire so easily.
Truly, there is great vision embodied in the Sabbath command!
Delight in God
The Sabbath is not just a rest day when we don’t work. To be truly inspired, we need to keep the Sabbath holy each week with this vision of spiritual rest in mind. This is why we come out of the world more on the Sabbath than on any other day of the week.
The Sabbath is not a day to pursue our own interests and pleasures. As the Prophet Isaiah wrote, “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord …” (Isaiah 58:13-14).
The Sabbath is holy, set apart for God’s purpose. It belongs to God. It pictures His rule on Earth, replacing Satan and his demons. That is why we don’t work, shop, do chores around the house, pursue hobbies or sports, pursue entertainment, and so forth on the Sabbath. Nothing should take our minds away from God and the purpose for keeping His Sabbath holy. Even what children do or read should not pull their minds away from God.
Keeping the Sabbath as God instructs will give us the spiritual lift and inspiration we need to help us work the next six days with joy and purpose. If we keep it holy as God intends, the Sabbath will become a great delight to us. Every Sabbath, we need to spend extra time remembering what that day pictures and meditating about the Kingdom of God.
Hebrews 10:25 shows that we are to assemble together with other believers. God wants us attending Sabbath services, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. The Sabbath is a commanded assembly. For more information on how to truly obey this command, request a free copy of our newest booklet, Can You Prove Which Church Is God’s?
Exodus 31:17 says this about the Sabbath: “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” God Himself was refreshed by the Sabbath! He looked back on His creation, and He looked forward to when He would be able to give all mankind a rest from sin. He anticipated being able to refresh all mankind with the Millennium and the rule of Jesus Christ.
“The Sabbath should energize our vision and our understanding of why we are here on Earth,” Mr. Flurry explains. “It keeps us happy and motivated and moving forward. You will never build the hope Peter is talking about without proper Sabbath-keeping. Without the Sabbath, we are stuck in the present. With a proper Sabbath, we are refreshed like God, ready for the challenges of the coming week.
“We must always keep ourselves focused and thinking like God. The Sabbath is the primary way to do that in the week, as it gives us more time to do the spiritual work that keeps us looking to God and looking toward the future. It fills us with His hopeful vision” (The Epistles of Peter—A Living Hope).
Proper Sabbath-keeping the way God intends will sharpen God’s purpose in our mind and truly inspire us to carry on and endure to the end!
A Sign
Many people believe that God’s Old Testament laws have been done away with. It is true that the Old Covenant has been superseded by the New Covenant and that certain sacrificial and ceremonial laws are no longer literally applicable. But the spiritual law of God embodied in the Ten Commandments will be in force forever! And on top of that, God made the Sabbath a special, separate covenant, also forever binding!
Read that covenant in Exodus 31:12-17. Note: This is after the Old Covenant was confirmed in Exodus 24:4-8. Verse 13 of Exodus 31 states, “… Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep ….” “The Eternal calls the Sabbaths ‘my sabbaths,’” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “The Sabbaths are His—they do not belong to us—they are not our days, but the Lord’s. They are not ‘the Jewish Sabbaths’ or ‘the Gentile Sabbaths.’ The Sabbath is a space of time. That time, whenever it arrives, is not ours, but God’s. If we appropriate it for ourselves—for our own use, whether work, pleasure, or what, we are stealing that time from God!” (Which Day Is the Christian Sabbath?).
Verse 13 also calls the Sabbath “a sign between me and you throughout your generations.” That is the purpose of the Sabbath: It is a sign. As Mr. Armstrong explained, a sign is a token of identity. The sign on a store identifies the owner and the kind of business it is, just as a flag identifies a nation. What information does the sign of the Sabbath advertise, announce or proclaim? “… that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.” So the Sabbath is the sign that identifies God!
“God gave man His Sabbath for the purpose of keeping mankind in the true knowledge and true worship of the true God,” Mr. Armstrong explained (ibid).
How does the Sabbath identify the true God? As verse 17 shows, it reminds us of the fact that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” Only the seventh day of the week points back to creation. Creation proves God’s existence!
“So God took the most enduring, lasting, imperishable thing man can know—a recurring space of time—the only day that is a memorial of the act of creating,” Mr. Armstrong continued. Only the seventh day points to the existence of the Creator!
“… God made that particular day sacred and holy to Him—designating it as the very day on which He commands His people to assemble for worship—the day man is commanded to rest from his own work and physical pleasure—and to be refreshed by assembling with other obedient worshipers in spiritual fellowship!” (ibid).
But as Mr. Armstrong pointed out, the Sabbath also identifies who are God’s people and who are not. Verse 13 says that He is the true God “that doth sanctify you.” Sanctify means to set apart for holy purpose. So God sanctified the Sabbath, set it apart for holy use—and used that as a sign that He sanctifies His people.
How does the Sabbath separate us from those who are not God’s own true people? As Mr. Armstrong said: Just start keeping God’s Sabbath holy as He commands—and you’ll soon see that it automatically sets you apart!
Many people are willing to acknowledge the other nine commandments, but the Sabbath command, they reject. It is a crucial test of obedience! “It identifies those who have surrendered their wills to God—who obey God, regardless of persecution or cost! … What a sign!” (ibid).
This special Sabbath covenant is an agreement, or contract, between God and His people. Verse 16 calls it “perpetual,” meaning continuous and unbroken. Verse 17 says it is to last forever. If God’s people fulfill their part—keeping the Sabbath holy—God promises to sanctify us, set us apart as His holy people! What a covenant!
Why Israel Was Taken Captive
Ultimately, the message God’s Church gives to the nations of Israel before Christ returns must include the importance of keeping God’s Sabbath day holy. Our booklet Which Day Is the Christian Sabbath? is certain to get a lot of attention before it’s all over. This will not be a popular message. Even religious people will hate us for showing that they need to change what they believe and practice regarding God’s Sabbath to avoid the Tribulation. This is likely a big reason Christ said the world would hate us as it hated Him (John 15:18-19).
Remember why the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were taken captive and made slaves. Both were punished and banished from the Holy Land because they broke God’s Sabbath. And God does not change (Hebrews 13:8).
Seventy years after Judah’s captivity, many returned to rebuild the temple. Nehemiah explained why they had been driven into slavery, and breaking the Sabbath was a prime reason! (Nehemiah 13:15, 18). That is how important keeping the Sabbath holy is to God! The prophets had warned what would happen if they didn’t—just as we must warn Israel today.
God made this clear back in the days of Moses. In the key prophecy of Leviticus 26, He offered blessings for obedience and punishment for rebellion. And He prefaces the whole chapter by mentioning only two commandments: those against idolatry and Sabbath-breaking (verses 1-2). That is how important those two commands are to God.
Remember, the Sabbath is the sign that identifies the true God and God’s people. But after Israel broke away from Judah, the first thing Jeroboam did in Israel was introduce idolatry and Sabbath-breaking. That resulted in Israel’s captivity, about 117 years before Judah’s captivity. That is coming to Israel and Judah today if they don’t repent of idolatry and breaking the Sabbath!
In Ezekiel 20, God prophesies of this very thing. In verse 12 He speaks of giving the Sabbath as a sign, then says, “But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them” (verse 13). God pleaded with their children not to make the same mistake (verses 18-20), but nothing changed (verse 21). God finally scattered them in national captivity and slavery (verse 23)—and He makes clear why: “Because they … had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols” (verse 24). Breaking the Sabbath and worshiping idols resulted in national captivity, just as Leviticus 26 warned.
Now notice the prophecy for us today: “As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you” (verse 33). Mr. Armstrong wrote that “fury poured out” refers to the seven last plagues prophesied to descend just before the Second Coming of Christ (Revelation 16:1). “So this, then, is a prophecy for our time!” (ibid).
Several prophecies show that at the time Christ returns, Israel will be in captivity and slavery! See, for example, verses 34-35 in this prophecy of Ezekiel 20. Christ Himself will plead with these people “[l]ike as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt”—entreating them to keep His laws and hallow His Sabbaths! (verses 36-38).
Citing verses 42-44, Mr. Armstrong wrote: “He [God] says our people, when they are no longer rebellious, who will then be keeping His Sabbath, shall remember their ways in which they were defiled, and shall loathe themselves for their Sabbath-breaking!” (ibid).
Yes, soon God will bring Israel and all peoples into obedience to His Sabbath, even if it takes severe punishment. We can avoid so much suffering by obeying God today.
A Weekly Test
In the Good News of April 1980, Mr. Armstrong wrote, “You, dear brother or sister in Christ—directly or indirectly my son or daughter in the Lord—you are being given a test—an examination as to your entrance into eternal life in God’s Kingdom—every week!”—speaking of the Sabbath. “What kind of grades is God giving you?”
He continued by warning, “No matter how righteous you are in other matters, if you fail in this crucial test every week, you will inherit eternal death in a lake of fire—not eternal life in God’s Kingdom.”
The Sabbath is a crucial test of our obedience. But you will also find that obeying it does far more than just ward off curses—it brings wonderful blessings into your life!
The law of the holy Sabbath day contains a vision of an everlasting covenant between God and His chosen people who will assist Him in restoring His way of life to Earth and, ultimately, spreading that way to the universe!
The Sabbath should inspire us each week with that vision. It identifies the people of God who are qualifying to restore what God Himself is eagerly looking forward to restoring—and all the blessings, peace and joy that come with it. The entire Earth will soon become stunningly beautiful, enabling all people to flourish and prosper. Very soon, what this day pictures will be reality for the entire world! Let’s be sure to keep this day holy.