On a different Christian forum, someone posted this -
"The whole argument of Hebrews 4 is STILL keeping the sabbath and not doing it is linked to disobedience where you will "perish".
So, "keep the sabbath or perish." I wish more of these sabbath day obsessed Sabbatarians would just admit that's what they teach.
Thats something for God to decide, not you, not I. According to God the Sabbath is one of God's commandments, He wrote it and claimed it as His Exo20:6 Exo31:18 and I do not believe God views breaking the Sabbath different than breaking any of the other commandments.
But lets go to what God said about this very subject that Hebrews 4 is reminding us of.
This is what God said to the Israelites
Eze 20: 12 Moreover I also gave them
My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know
that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
Eze 20:20 hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I
am the Lord your God.’
But instead of placing the Word of God above anything else what did they do?
Heb4:5 and again in this
place: “They shall not enter My rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains that some
must enter i
t, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience,
What did they disobey? God said hallow My Sabbaths....what did they do instead...
Eze 20:13 Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they did not walk in My statutes; they despised My judgments, ‘which,
if a man does, he shall live by them’;
and they greatly defiled My Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out My fury on them in the wilderness, to consume them.
And for their disobedience what was the consequence:
Eze 20:15 So I also raised My hand in an oath to them in the wildernes
s, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, ‘flowing with milk and honey,’ the glory of all lands, 16
because they despised My judgments and did not walk in My statutes,
but profaned My Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols.
Why Hebrews 4 is bringing us back to obedience to God's commandments especially the 4th commandment that God spoke of in this way:
Heb4:4 For
He has spoken (
Exo20:1)in a certain place
of the seventh day in this way: “And
God rested on the seventh day from all His works”
This is what God spoke of the seventh day in this way
Exo 20:1 And
God spoke all these words, saying:
Exo 20:8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10
but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle
, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
So the Israelites were not able to enter into their promised rest because they broke the Sabbath, God Himself said it equates to idol worship because we are replacing what God said, with the words of someone else. Does God love us more than those who came before us.
We are told plainly not to follow in their same example of disobedience
Heb 4: 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest,
lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
To enter into our promised rest
Rev 22:14
Blessed are those who do
His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.
No one can reverse God's blessings or sanctification because we are not God. Lets not reject what God blessed and sanctified and what He is Lord of but instead be His servants Isa56:6 and obey Him through love and faith, not what is made popular by man.