I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them;
I am the Lord your God, and the command to Israel is to recognize Him as such by walking in His statutes and keeping His judgments and doing them in life and action and practice. That required obedience includes hallowing His Sabbaths, which are a sign between God and His people by which they may know that He is the Lord their God who sanctifies them. The call was spoken after they had despised His judgments and refused His statutes and polluted His Sabbaths and given their hearts to idols, as an appeal to return to Him with renewed emphasis on keeping the Sabbath holy. In the wilderness God gave this command with the Sabbath as a central test of obedience, reminding them every week by the miracle of the manna of its sacred obligation.
They greatly polluted His Sabbaths through laxness and neglect, which is listed among the reasons the first generation was excluded from the promised land. Because their children did not learn the lesson but continued the same neglect during the forty years of wandering, God declared that though they would enter Canaan they would afterward be scattered among the heathen. The Sabbath is a sign of loyalty and of God's government, stamping the soul with the King's mark that its keepers are chosen and set apart to honor God and marking their recognition of Him as God. It commemorates God's wisdom and power and goodness in creation, was established before Israel became a distinct people, and was given for all mankind to keep holy.
Faithful observance continually reminds of accountability to Him as Creator and Redeemer and, kept in the proper spirit, makes idolatry impossible, while setting aside the claims of the Sabbath precept as no longer binding leads to forgetting the Creator and worshiping other gods. God's law here is the standard of duty and truth, so accepting the Sabbath entails obedience to the rest of the Decalogue, since one cannot truly keep the Sabbath while disregarding another commandment. Honoring that sign requires living honestly and refusing all dishonest transaction and robbery and extortion, and doing the Sabbathkeeping work specified in Isaiah 58. Closely examining the Word shows whether a person has this mark and whether he honors it instead of dishonoring it.
The Sabbath is God's test, and no human ruler is authorized to stand between God and people or to compel obedience to human laws that oppose God's law. The seventh-day Sabbath is a coming great issue that God's people are to reverence. Israel's rebellion against God's commands brought punishment, warning that persisting in setting aside the true Sabbath, including enforcing Sunday observance, will bring God's punishment and wrath unless there is change.
I am the Lord your God, and the command to Israel is to recognize Him as such by walking in His statutes and keeping His judgments and doing them in life and action and practice. That required obedience includes hallowing His Sabbaths, which are a sign between God and His people by which they may know that He is the Lord their God who sanctifies them. The call was spoken after they had despised His judgments and refused His statutes and polluted His Sabbaths and given their hearts to idols, as an appeal to return to Him with renewed emphasis on keeping the Sabbath holy. In the wilderness God gave this command with the Sabbath as a central test of obedience, reminding them every week by the miracle of the manna of its sacred obligation.
They greatly polluted His Sabbaths through laxness and neglect, which is listed among the reasons the first generation was excluded from the promised land. Because their children did not learn the lesson but continued the same neglect during the forty years of wandering, God declared that though they would enter Canaan they would afterward be scattered among the heathen. The Sabbath is a sign of loyalty and of God's government, stamping the soul with the King's mark that its keepers are chosen and set apart to honor God and marking their recognition of Him as God. It commemorates God's wisdom and power and goodness in creation, was established before Israel became a distinct people, and was given for all mankind to keep holy.
Faithful observance continually reminds of accountability to Him as Creator and Redeemer and, kept in the proper spirit, makes idolatry impossible, while setting aside the claims of the Sabbath precept as no longer binding leads to forgetting the Creator and worshiping other gods. God's law here is the standard of duty and truth, so accepting the Sabbath entails obedience to the rest of the Decalogue, since one cannot truly keep the Sabbath while disregarding another commandment. Honoring that sign requires living honestly and refusing all dishonest transaction and robbery and extortion, and doing the Sabbathkeeping work specified in Isaiah 58. Closely examining the Word shows whether a person has this mark and whether he honors it instead of dishonoring it.
The Sabbath is God's test, and no human ruler is authorized to stand between God and people or to compel obedience to human laws that oppose God's law. The seventh-day Sabbath is a coming great issue that God's people are to reverence. Israel's rebellion against God's commands brought punishment, warning that persisting in setting aside the true Sabbath, including enforcing Sunday observance, will bring God's punishment and wrath unless there is change.