Explaining “Holy”

I ask again: Does it make any difference to God which day men choose to make holy? Can they arbitrarily select any day they wish and designate it “holy”?

A well-known Bible example illustrates the point. Exodus 3:1-22 gives the account of God speaking to Moses from a burning bush. While most who know anything of the Bible are familiar with this passage, there is an overlooked lesson in it pertaining to the Sabbath. The setting is Moses leading a flock of sheep to Mt. Sinai (Horeb). He came to a bush that was burning, yet was not burning up.

God commanded Moses, “Draw not near here: put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place where on you stand is HOLY GROUND” (Exod. 3:5). Moses did not argue about whether he thought the ground was holy. He simply took his shoes off. Much was at stake here. Had Moses done otherwise, reasoning like so many today, who argue about what God has made holy, God would have been unable to use him to lead Israel from bondage in Egypt.

It was God’s presence in the bush that made it holy. Surrounding bushes or ground were not holy. God designated only a certain piece of ground as holy, as having His presence. The account does not indicate that the ground looked or felt or in any way appeared different from the surrounding landscape. God had to REVEAL to Moses that the ground was holy—that He was present in it—that Moses must remove his shoes from it. Moses was given no choice but to treat that ground as special and holy. But appearance did not tell him this. God had to reveal it to him!

There is a direct connection to the Sabbath in this point. Here is what the prophet Isaiah wrote: “If you turn away your foot from the sabbath, from doing your pleasure [business] on My holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shall honour Him, NOT doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words: Then shall you delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it” (Isa. 58:13-14).

This plain passage explains that there are ways to profane God’s holy Sabbath. Like the ground around the burning bush, we are commanded to take our feet (our shoes) off God’s holy time—time that points to Him and has His holy presence in it. Either we believe the ideas and customs of men—and their churches—or we believe the plain commands from ALMIGHTY GOD! Either the opinions—and acceptance—of God-rejecting human beings are important to us, or the opinion of God is!

Which do you value?

God says, “The Eternal has given you the Sabbath.” We have seen that this world’s theologians have given mankind and professing “Churchianity” Sunday (the day of the sun)—and we will learn that it comes from rank paganism!

God Kept Track of the Weekly Cycle

After making the seventh day holy 4,000 years earlier, Jesus Christ kept the Sabbath—and His presence is still in it today, 2,000 years later. Obviously, as its Maker, Christ would not be confused about which day to keep the Sabbath (Luke 4:16). But we should take a moment to briefly overview the pattern of Sabbath observance through the 4,000 years from its creation to Christ’s First Coming. This sets the stage to “clear the deck” of all questions for mankind’s first 4,000 years of existence.

Adam and Eve kept the Sabbath almost immediately after they were created on the sixth day. Obviously, their son Abel is called “righteous” (Matt. 23:35). Since Psalm 119:172 explains, “All your commandments are righteousness,” Abel kept the Sabbath. Since Enoch “walked with God” (Gen. 5:24), as a preacher of righteousness (Jude 14-15), he just as obviously kept the Sabbath. Therefore Noah, also a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5), would certainly have kept the Sabbath. All these preachers—Abel, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Noah—were direct descendants of each other (Seth was Abel’s brother) in this order and their lives overlapped for hundreds of years.

(It can be demonstrated that Adam died only about 125 years before Noah was born.) No one would have lost track of the weekly cycle—and therefore which day was the Sabbath—during this period. (We will address this topic in greater detail in the next chapter.) Certainly Shem would have been taught by his father Noah to keep the Sabbath. History also records that he was “righteous”—and he overlapped 150 years into Abraham’s lifetime.

Abraham, often called “the father of the faithful,” kept God’s Sabbath. Notice: “Because that Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My COMMANDMENTS, My statutes, and My laws” (Gen. 26:5). This verse is most plain. Abraham kept God’s Sabbath! It is the Fourth COMMANDMENT.

The Bible declares that “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). Because the Law did exist from creation, God could tell Cain, before he killed Abel, that “SIN lies at the door” (Gen. 4:7), if he did not control his attitude.

Human beings must justify their rebellion against God’s Commandments. Human nature hates His law (Rom. 8:7), preferring the traditions and commandments of men in its place (Mark 7:6-9). Yet, God commands in the New Testament that to break any ONE of His laws is sin (James 2:10-11).

There is a reason this is especially critical to understand. Many who refuse to accept God’s Sabbath, forgetting it was made at creation, claim that God’s Commandments did not exist until Moses received them at Mt. Sinai—430 years after the promises were made to Abraham. How then did Abraham and others know of them? Because they were all given at creation. The weekly cycle has never changed since the original creation week.

Before continuing, let’s be absolutely certain that this is true. Let’s study the abundance of proof.

Back to Saturday or Sunday

Back to By David C. Pack