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
The Significance
This is the original command from the Lord God who created all things. It was as He said, to be a reminder to do as He did: work in the first six days of the week, yet rest on the seventh day.
David in the Psalms remembered this as well, but he had a deeper sense of the typ of rest God wanted His people to know.
This same is repeated in the New Testament showing us that this command still applies after Christ and was not done away. Along with the repeated command is a stronger statement than that which David made: this having more to do with faith / believing God than rest for the body from physical labor.
A promise was left for us to receive - the ability to enter into God's rest. We must walk in godly fear, being admonished so we do not fall short and become unable to obtain the promise.
The gospel (the testimony of God and of Christ) was preached to us and to those who went before us (as it was to David and those who went before him). However, it was not a benefit to them because they did not believe the word that was preached to them.
There were many who died in the wilderness and did not enter into the rest that the land of promise (Canaan land - now Israel) would provide. Even after this, there is a rest to look forward to, for those who do not harden their hearts to God's message and will choose to believe Him.
Part of this rest is man not doing the work of man. Instead, we must do the works of God which is why it says, let us labour therefore to enter into that rest. If we fall into the same example of unbelief, then we would be only choosing to live life according to our own merits and observations of the right way to live. However, if we choose to believe the word which is spoken to us, then we will be choosing to actively live the believing life - the life that is under subjection, obedience to the only High and Living God, Creator of Heaven and earth, the One by whom we live and move and have our being. That is true Sabbath. Rest in Him.
Living in recognition of the fact that our lives consist of all that is by Him, is learning to rest in Him while we live on earth and is preparation for our eternal rest.
Psalm 95:6-11
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. To day if ye will hear His voice,
Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
When your fathers tempted Me, proved me, and saw My work.
Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known My ways:
Unto whom I sware in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest.
Hebrews 4:4-11
Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
For we which have believed do enter into rest, as He said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into My rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For He spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all His works.
And in this place again, If they shall enter into My rest.
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
Again, He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would He not afterward have spoken of another day.
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.
Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
Glory, Honor and Praise to the only Wise God!!
Come unto Me,
all ye that labour
and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest
Matthew 11:27-28
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.
Hebrews 3:12-14