Sabbath Rest

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jiggyfly

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All who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. (Hebrews 4:10 NLT)

Christ is God's Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. When we enter by faith into Christ's righteousness, we enter into God's rest. It is a tremendous power.... The Lord says, in quite simple language, "If only you will trust Me, and trust My provision, and stop worrying, stop fretting, stop being anxious; if you will but believe Me, I have the ground upon which I could meet all your need; I am no longer without ground. There was a time when I had not the ground upon which to do anything with you, and for you, but now you are on the ground of Christ, the ground which I have provided; if only you will trust Me, if only you will rest in Me to bring you through, you will be saved from so much of this weakness, and fret, and anxiety!" Worry is a destroying thing. At the back of a lot that we suffer in body, and in mind, there is so often a secret, hidden restlessness, something deep down in our subconscious being of a fret, an anxiety, something that is not rest. It takes many forms. Sometimes over a concern of the Lord's we feel that, unless we do it, it will never be done. We feel that if we are not up and at it, then the whole thing will go to pieces; so much depends upon us.

No one will think that this is the call for passivity, for abandon of concern for the things of the Lord; but it is possible for us to have the things of the Lord on our hearts and yet not to have faith in God about them. There are hidden secrets to a great deal of our weakness and defeat, and unnecessary suffering. They are the hidden things of something which is other than just restful faith in God. There are some people who need to take things to heart a little more than they do, but for many the trouble is perhaps of the other kind. They are thinking that they have to run God's universe for Him; they must look after things or else they will never be looked after! But to observe the Sabbath (no one will take that literally as meaning the observance of a particular day of the week), to recognize Christ as God's Rest through righteousness, to observe that, to keep that Sabbath, is Life which conquers death, because it is righte ousness which cannot be destroyed.


By T. Austin-Sparks from: Spiritual Ministry - Chapter 4
 

Guestman

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At Hebrews 3, the apostle Paul establishes that our Creator, Jehovah God, would not permit many of the nation of Israel to "enter into (his) rest" during their forty year trek "in the wilderness"(1513-1473 B.C.E), quoting from David at Psalms 95 and saying: "For this reason, just as the holy spirit says: “Today if you people listen to his own voice do not harden your hearts as on the occasion of causing bitter anger, as in the day of making the test in the wilderness, in which your forefathers made a test of me with a trial, and yet they had seen my works for forty years. For this reason I became disgusted with this generation and said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they themselves have not come to know my ways.’ So I swore in my anger, ‘They shall not enter into my rest.’” (Heb 3:7-11)


What is meant by God's "rest" and how long is it ? Paul identifies what is meant by God's "rest" by further saying: "Therefore, since a promise is left of entering into his rest, let us fear that sometime someone of you may seem to have fallen short of it......For in one place he has said of the seventh day as follows: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,” and again in this place: “They shall not enter into my rest.”(Hen 4:1, 4, 5)


As a nation, the Israelites lacked faith in Jehovah God to give them "a land flowing with milk and honey."(Ex 3:8, 17, Heb 3:18, 19) Those who did enter the Promised Land under Joshua experienced a rest, but not the full rest to be enjoyed under the Messiah. It was only typical, or a shadow of the reality.


Hence, Jehovah's "rest" is connected with "the seventh day", or the seventh "creative" day at Genesis 2:1-3. Here it says that "by the seventh day God came to the completion of his work that he had made, and he proceeded to rest on the seventh day from all his work that he had made. And God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred, because on it he has been resting from all his work that God has created for the purpose of making."


What did God "rest" from and when did it begin ? All previous "creative" days had closure, with the words: "And there came to be evening and there came to be morning" (Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), showing progressive stages of preparing the earth for human habitation.


Paul makes note that the "seventh (creative) day" was still ongoing in his time some 4,000 years after the creation of Adam. Over the course of six "creative" days, Jehovah fashioned the earth, from just a "rock" that was "formless and waste"(Gen 1:2), into a beautiful home for mankind for Adam and Eve, with the Garden of Eden as a pattern to follow to the ends of the earth as they and their descendants worked to complete the earth as a paradise or as the word Eden means, a garden of pleasure.

God then said, after having looked upon his handiwork, that "it was very good".(Gen 1:31) Jehovah ' rested ' from any further creating regarding the earth, having brought it to completion and has been ' resting' now for over 6,000 years.(Adam was created in the year 4,026 B.C.E, based on Bible chronology with the year 29 C.E as a pivotal date [baptism of Jesus Christ (in the fall of the year) and is noted as the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, who began reigning on Sept 15, 14 C.E., Luke 3:1])


Thus, each "creative" day is several thousand years long, not 24 hours as creationists proclaim. And the "seventh (creative) day" is God's sabbath day, that will end when Jesus millennial reign is completed, which is soon to begin. So, from its beginning not long after Adam's creation to its end at the close of Jesus "thousand year" reign (Rev 20:6), each "creative" day is about 7,000 years long.


After the destruction of the rebels at the close of Jesus millennial reign (Rev 20:7-10), the earth will have been transformed into a paradise for "meek" ones to inhabited forever.(Ps 37:11, 29; Matt 5:5) The evil-doer that asked Jesus to remember him when he got into his "kingdom" (Luke 23, 42, 43), will be resurrected from the dead, giving him an opportunity to measure up the Jehovah's holy standards and live life without end in perfection if he does.(Rev 20:12)
 

afaithfulone4u

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Hi jiggyfly,
While I stand on the 7th day of the week which is Saturday as still the day of rest just as Christ will rest the earth to replenish it in the 7th day(7,000 yr.) in the millennium. There is another rest just as you said and it pertains to rest from our own works as in we play our own god as if not needing God in our daily walk of life but REST in Him for all of our needs, protection, health etc..

And then there is the rest that our weary souls get when we overcome our flesh man that is frail and is tempted to sin and then torment, heat from all directions comes making our lives constant in turmoil. This is the ultimate goal when we have allowed the Spirit and Word to work in us to make us good inside as well as out. Jesus must come in the flesh so that we can be made in his image(attributes of God) not be God for Jesus is the Seed/Word of God that transforms us into the children of God.

Salvation can only come by receiving Christ and believing that he is the Son of God.. but he did not just die to cover our sins so that we can continue to do them and God won't be the wiser. He fulfilled the law and died to pay our debt to the Father so that we could receive the HELPER, the Spirit of God that Adam originally had, who guides us into all truth and washes us with the Word of God as new born again babes so that we can learn how to WALK in/with the Word to renew our minds so that the Blessings of God can begin to flow in our lives and we little by little enter into the REST of God from the world's mess. For without the Spirit we can not obey the Truth, so everyman has to receive the free gift of God for carnal man cannot receive the things of God, so salvation MUST come through Christ and the Spirit.