Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Sealed People of God”. How most of us long to be so sealed! But we must be careful to not think this is something God does apart from our cooperation. As if it is something done outside of us in some mere bookkeeping fashion. Or that it is something that is seen externally, like the observance of a certain day of the week for worship (the Sabbath Day). Seems like a heretical statement on my part, does it not? The quarterly states a belief most of us Adventists hold in Sunday’s lesson… “The faithfulness of God’s sealed people has been tested in every generation. However, the test of faithfulness in the final crisis will be in keeping God’s commandments (see Rev. 12:17; Rev. 14:12). In particular, the fourth commandment will become the test of obedience to God (Rev. 14:7). As the Sabbath has been the sign of God’s people in Biblical times (Ezek. 20:12, 20; Heb. 4:9, 10) so it will be the sign of loyalty to God in final times”. What is it to “keep” the Sabbath? Is the mere observance of the Biblical Sabbath the evidence you are sealed? Did not the faithful Jews, the Pharisees themselves, observe the Sabbath Day? Yet they did not recognize their God when He showed-up as a Man among men, said He had was the Devil, and then killed Him. The Book of Revelation is clear on the sign of those sealed (the Sabbath, as the quarterly has so quoted). So how to make sense of all this?
One of the real issues that all religions exhibit to a greater or lesser extent, is that belief in their particular denomination is tantamount and equal to salvation. As if membership in a certain human organization is the same thing as being enrolled in the heavenly throng. Oh so wrong. The two are not synonymous. God never said that you needed to be a Seventh-day Adventist in order to be saved (Jesus said we needed to be “born again”). Scripture does tell us that “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26). But the same epistle tells us that “they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham” (Romans 9:6, 7). And by extension, we can say this of every religion in general, and of our own Seventh-day Adventist denomination in particular. The mere weekly observance of the Sabbath-day being the sign of being sealed is not what Revelation is telling us. In order to grasp this, we need to see what true “keeping” of the Sabbath-day means.
Isaiah 58: 5-15 has a description of what the true “keeping” of the Sabbath-day means. In the quote below, Isaiah starts by describing a true “fast”. And then uses that description in correlation with the true keeping of the Sabbath.
“Is it a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
In this we see what the true “keeping” of the Sabbath-day really is. It is the same characteristic in “keeping” all the law. In a word, it is “love”. Love for others. This and this alone is the true “keeping” of the Sabbath-day… and all the commandments, too. “Love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). So if our observance of the Sabbath-day is only a cessation of activity for 24 hours, or merely attending church and then experiencing “lay” activities (as a Sabbath afternoon nap is frivolously called), then are we really “keeping” (or cherishing) the Sabbath-day? Are we really honoring God? We dare not duplicate the understanding and practice of the Pharisees of Christ’s day.
The sealing, in EGW’s words, is a “settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they (God’s people) cannot be moved” (quoted in Sunday’s lesson). This is not a mere assent to some ecclesiastical truth. But a settling into “The Truth”… into our loving Father and His loving ways. A settling so complete that we lose ourselves in the depths of His love. May our “settling” be complete in Him, is my prayer for us all.
With brotherly love,
Jim