Bulletin Articles: Full Article for Record Number 999
Sabbath Given To Israel, Not Us
by Larry Ray Hafley
Seventh Day Adventists say that we are bound to observe the Sabbath today. They say we are to worship God on Saturday, the seventh day of the week. One of the arguments which shows that we, as Gentiles, are not bound to keep the Sabbath day is that the law of Moses was given to the nation of Israel and not to us! Hear the testimony of Moses and the prophets:
Exodus 19:3, 6-"And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel....And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel." This was immediately before the ten commandments were given in Exodus 20.
Exodus 31:16, 17-"Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 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." An engagement ring is a "sign" between two young people that they are soon to belong to one another. It is not a "sign" between them and others. (The ring may be a "sign" for other men to stay away!) However, it is a "sign" between those two alone; otherwise, the ring loses its significance. Likewise, the Sabbath was a "sign between" God and Israel and not with others.
Exodus 34:27, 28-And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." Observe the connection of these verses with those previously cited above. The covenant was with whom? With Moses "and with Israel." What was included in the "words of the covenant" he made "with Israel"? "The ten commandments."
Deuteronomy 4:13-"And he declared unto you (Israel, v. 1) his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone." Moses shows that the covenant God made, "even ten commandments," was with Israel and not with other nations.
Deuteronomy 5:3, 15-"The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day....And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." Who was "a servant in the land of Egypt"? Israel. Whom did God command "to keep the Sabbath day"? Those whom he brought out of Egypt. Were we brought out of Egypt? No, therefore, the command does not pertain to us.
Nehemiah 9:13, 14-"Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: And madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant." According to Deuteronomy 5:15 above, to whom was God’s "holy Sabbath" given?
Malachi 4:4-"Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb (Sinai-LRH) for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments." What was part of the law given "for all Israel," (not for us) "in Horeb," that is at "mount Sinai"? It was his covenant, "even ten commandments," which included the Sabbath day (Deut. 4:13).
Therefore, let no one deceive you and make you think we should keep the Sabbath today. It was not given to us, but to Israel, and it has been done away (Col. 2:14-16).
