“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six day you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahweh your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11, NKJV).
The fourth of the Ten Commandments tells us to set aside the seventh day, from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, as a day we are to “keep ... holy.” This meant that it was to be a day set apart for God’s purposes alone, a day belonging to God alone, as “the Sabbath of Yahweh,” the one true God.
Yet this archetypal fourth commandment also encompasses all the laws pertaining to how we serve God, as well as all the laws about the feast days which God commanded, so we, His priesthood of the church, will use those days to remember Him, His deeds and His ways, so we carefully meditate on these topics more deeply every year of our lives. In addition to this, the fourth-order Sabbath laws regulate the duties of the Levitical priesthood, who served the common priests in the priesthood of the church of Israel. These fourth-order laws are actually about setting aside time to exclusively work for God, turning our thoughts away from all the works of selfish ambition for personal gain.
Also notice that, although this fourth commandment was given to a singular “you,” that is, to each individual in God’s church of Israel, each church member was commanded to involve one’s own children, employees and even animals in the keeping of the Sabbath. Each church member was to ask everyone within one’s own personal sphere of influence—those within one’s nuclear family, extended family, church, business, community and nation—to refrain from seeking personal gain through selfish ambition on the Sabbath. Of course, those who remained outside the church and nation of Israel, all who stood beyond the reach of one’s spiritual influence, were not bound under the Sabbath laws. For God only made this Old Covenant, with all its laws, as well as the fulfilling New Covenant, with the people in His true church of Israel, not with anyone else in the world. So neither the priesthood nor the secular government of Israel ever required Gentiles in their land to keep the Sabbath, although they did teach some about the Sabbath, and some actually did keep it.
Now think about how much destruction, suffering and death has resulted from selfish ambition for personal gain, as greedy souls worship themselves so much that they treat their duty to work for God as their lowest priority, or ignore their God-given responsibilities altogether. And “Christians” are now so worldly that they have become as much of a bane to the earth as the secular humanists, or worse. Most churches now attempt to correct God, to demean Him, or to insult Him, especially when He does not cater to their own selfish ambitions. And churches have done this throughout most of history, from the days when God took His apostles away from them. They will not hear God’s Word, but make new laws for themselves, based on traditions of pagans. All of them together have walked away and spurned the continuous, eternal Sabbath rest of a daily, loving and joyful service to God. For we must realize that the Sabbath was not meant to always be a labour for God on only one day of the week, a short pause in setting aside works for oneself through selfish ambition. Actually, Jesus came to fulfill the Sabbath laws, so we might serve our God always. Yet most members of churches today have chosen to labour as exhausted, beaten slaves of Satan seven days per week, hoping to receive his rewards of worthless trinkets and bobbles, which he only grants to those who willingly destroy lives, while their ignored, abused spirits starve and pass out unconscious within their souls.
“Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.... So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His” (Heb. 4:1,9-10, ESV). God rested forever after doing works for Himself for six days, after creating heaven, the universe, the atmosphere of the earth and the earth itself. On the seventh day, began to exclusively serve His creations alone, all day and every day since that time. He never did works for Himself ever again, never created anything for Himself again, but also never took a moment’s rest from working for His creations. For His serving of His beloved creations, through the love of His heart, and especially the serving of His cherished elect children, was His rest. Likewise, we enter a continuous, ongoing and eternal Sabbath rest by working exclusively for our God alone, by serving His creation and forever casting aside all our selfish ambitions. For our Sabbath rest, in Jesus, is to lovingly serve Him with the whole of our spirits, by serving His creation together with Him, all according to His loving will.
Serving God and His creation is the core will of our spirits, the innermost desire of our elect spirits, as much as it is the desire of our heavenly Father. For our spirits inherited this intense desire from our Father. So let me tell the false churches, especially the humanistic ones, that this archetypal fourth commandment is not about doing nothing on one specific day of the week. And the Sabbath day certainly has absolutely nothing to do with Sunday, the day that Constantine, a completely false Christian, set aside for the worship of his pagan god Mythra, his “unconquered sun god,” whom he equated with Jesus Christ. For Sunday is the first day of the week, not the seventh day, not the day God eternally set aside as the Sabbath day before the eyes of Adam and Eve, not the day God also commanded in His Law which Jesus fulfills and does not change or nullify. Furthermore, a Roman Sunday starts at midnight, not at sunset. So it is not even a real day, as God Himself defined a day in His Word. There is no command of God which ever set aside a Roman day as a so-called Sabbath day, where church members must gather to esteem human gods and themselves above other brothers and sisters, in a pagan Roman way, and passively listen to deceiving lectures uttered by human gods.
Why do worldly, so-called “Christians” even argue about which Roman day of the week they should set aside to follow their pagan traditions of men? If they hate to hear and practise the ways of God, if they refuse to set aside His appointed day of the week, and will not serve Him alone even on that one day, but only serve themselves and other human gods every Roman Sunday, as well as every day of the week, why would they even bother arguing about which pagan Roman day of the week they must gather together to pretend to worship God? Clearly, they are Roman humanists who are actually worshipping man instead. And their so-called “Sabbath” days are all about pursuing the things of Satan’s world order, days to esteem themselves over other human beings, even while they slander God. But Jesus Christ is transforming us, the elect sinners who know Him through His teaching and training of our spirits, into His truly sanctified “royal priesthood.” And God has never allowed any of His true priests to seek any inheritance for themselves. God always forbids His priests to seek any personal gain through selfish ambition. For His priesthood is to forever enter His Sabbath rest, to work all seven days of the week for Him, to dedicate every day of their lives exclusively to Him.
Clearly, it is true that the Roman Emperor Constantine, the pagan high priest of Mythra to his dying day, set aside Sunday as the day in which the church was to assemble. For Constantine thought Jesus was just another incarnation of the demon Mythra. So he assumed, as the high priest of the cult that worshipped Mythra, that he was also the head of the church that supposedly worshipped Jesus. For all Roman cults and institutions had a human head, because all of them were humanists. Now, since one cannot be a Christian while worshipping a demon, or while believing humanistic doctrines, or while usurping Jesus as the head of every man, we know, with absolute certainty, that Constantine was never a true Christian. Since he thought Jesus was one and the same being as his pagan Roman “unconquered sun god,” the loveless, ruthless, selfishly ambitious Emperor Constantine remained a pagan until his last dying breath. So why would anyone heed Constantine’s edict, which forced the so-called “Christian” churches to gather on Sundays instead of Saturdays? Since he commanded this to honour his pagan “sun god” (and, through his Roman antisemitism, to punish God's Old Covenant church of Jews who gathered on Saturdays), why would any true Christian heed any of his words?
Also, we know that the true, apostolic church would usually receive donations on the first day of the week (I Cor. 16:2). Therefore, since the apostolic church—which considered itself to be a Jewish church—along with all the other Jewish churches, never allowed any handling of money on a Sabbath day, we conclude, with all certainty, that the true apostolic church definitely did not consider Sunday to be a Sabbath day. The New Testament, and other documents from that time, confirm that the apostolic church always gathered on Saturdays. Then they also had a church family meal after the Sabbath ended at sunset, which was the first hour of the next Jewish day (Sunday). And at that time, after sunset, on the biblical first Jewish day of the week (on Sunday) is when the church began to accept donations for the needy and for other church works. Yet the argument for keeping Saturday as the Sabbath is not actually relevant either. None of this truly matters. For all the elect whom Jesus awakens and gathers into His true church are all the priesthood of God, representatives of God who serves all His creation all seven days of the week, who calls His priests to serve with Him every day of the week. So every day of the week is a Sabbath for us, and we can gather any day of the week. But gathering on the seventh day reminds us that every day is a Sabbath rest from selfish ambition.
To correctly interpret the fourth commandment, with the meaning God Himself gave it, we need to remember that God Himself is our first and foremost example of how to keep the Sabbath. The way God keeps it is the way we are to keep it. And God’s Sabbath began on the seventh day, but did not end the next day, nor forever after that. Then let us also remind ourselves that all of the first four archetypal commandments tell us how to love and serve God. Thus, the fourth-order Sabbath laws must also tell us how to love and serve God too. And the reason we love God is actually because He first loved us, because He, a Spirit, reaches out to our elect spirits and teaches us wise truths about just, genuine love. So the first four orders of God’s laws, all that is related to the first four of the Ten Commandments, are about a mutual love existing between God and each individual elect spirit who serves Him within His priesthood. And, if we truly love someone, we do not put an unwanted and totally useless burden on that beloved one, merely to test one’s love for us. Only psychopaths do that, since they cannot love, because they want only blind loyalty from souls whom they pretend to possess. Now, since we never make arbitrary rules to test one’s loyalty to us, why do some preach that God made the Sabbath to test our loyalty to Him? Those preachers only think this because they themselves are psychopaths. In reality, every elect soul learns about another one’s love through daily interactions with that other soul, by talking and working together. Therefore, God did not command the Sabbath day merely to test our loyalty to Him, by demanding that we refrain from doing anything at all, not even the works of God. God did not command the Sabbath so we could lose a day’s profit from our works through selfish ambition, to test how much we are willing to sacrifice for Him. Yes, we are loyal. But God clearly did not command the Sabbath day so we would waste a seventh of our personal income to a test our loyalty to Him. On the contrary, the Sabbath day was supposed to be the busiest day of the week, a day involving our spiritual, mental and physical works for Him, for us to work together with Him, a day for the greatest profit in our lives, a day for the joy of our spirits. It was a day for each one to labour exclusively for God and with God, for the good of all His creations.
Also remember that Jesus came to “fulfill” the fourth-order Sabbath laws, to complete them, to bring to reality the whole and extended meaning and intent of these Sabbath laws, in us and through us. So how can anyone possibly ever think that Jesus fulfilled these fourth-order laws by simply changing the Sabbath day from the seventh Jewish day of the week to the first Roman day of the week? Jesus did not say, “No longer will you sit around doing nothing but complaining and slandering My name from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. For I died on the cross so that you could now fulfill the Sabbath laws by sitting around doing nothing but complaining and slandering My name according to a pagan definition of a day, and on a different day, from midnight to midnight on a Roman Sunday.” Some theologians love to wax eloquently about how Sunday became the new Sabbath day, how their god gloriously exalted their Gentile church so they could persecute Jews, after their fickle god of their church cursed the Jews and esteemed them instead—although they are humanists and are worse sinners than those Jews. All of this is utter nonsense invented by those man-worshipping humanists.
Now it is time for us to see what this fourth commandment truly means, what God Himself intended it to mean, and how Jesus Christ’s Holy Spirit can fulfill our love for Him. If we truly want to know the real meaning, Jesus, our Creator God, will actually teach us all about His Sabbath laws. Many Jews and Christians alike have refused to teach the true meaning of these fourth-order laws, nor do some even admit that this Sabbath law is indeed an archetypal commandment referring to a number of other laws of God. For they and their churches certainly do not want it to stand at the centre of all the other commandments about setting aside our own works of selfish ambition, in order to do only the works of God, under the command of the only Head of every man, Jesus, according to His will alone, always guarding our love for God as our first priority in all matters of life and faith. Like the first three commandments above it, which are about our love for Jesus, they ignore the very obvious interpretation of this Sabbath law as a command to love God, since they are mostly humanists who want only to love and worship human beings, especially themselves, and care for themselves above all others, where each walks according to one’s mind of flesh in one’s own selfish war against God.
Keeping the Sabbath “holy” is a true worship of God, and the opposite of what many churches teach today, especially opposed to all the “Health and Wealth” churches teach. For it is to keep each day set apart for Jesus and His purposes alone, and to deny any selfish ambitions for ourselves. In fact, God even declared that everyone associated with our lives must enter into this rest with us. So we are to take a stand against the selfish ambitions of others within the sphere of our lives. In this Old Covenant, He said, “six day you shall labour and do all your work .” So, in the Old Covenant, He allowed us to work six days for our own selfish ambitions, to build up our own wealth and our own inheritances, to do secular works for personal gain. He merely commanded that we set aside one day per week as a “Sabbath,” as a day dedicated to doing His works. But Jesus now fulfills the Sabbath.
Now the word “Sabbath” meant “to cease, to desist,” to stop doing one’s own works for oneself. For the seventh day was to be a day “of Yahweh your God.” So the Sabbath was never meant to be a day to glorify human beings, for one to exalt himself on a raised platform at the front of the church, a day to set aside to practice the Roman traditions which men dreamed up in their own sinful minds, as their thoughts were led by demons. Instead, it was to be a day entirely set aside for the real God. It was a day to turn all one’s focus to God, to do only His works, a day to hear, study and learn about Him and His ways, even a day to gather information about God’s will for our family of the church. So it was to be a day of the most spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically hard works of the week, that is, for God’s faithful, loving and true elect worshippers, for all who actually served God, for all of His true priests. His priests worked more on a Sabbath than they did other the week days.
Yet, in these New Covenant times of Jesus Christ’s salvation which fulfills all His loving laws, we are all being made into priests of the “Royal Priesthood.” We all serve Jesus as our High Priest, as our only final authority in all matters of life and faith. In the Old Covenant times, God said, “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people’” (Ex. 31:13-14, NKJV). So, for one thing, we see here that only God can sanctify us. None but God can choose whom He will set apart as His own people for His purposes, then teach and train them to walk according to His loving ways. And their zeal to keep His Sabbath was to be a “sign” that God was indeed doing all this sanctifying work in their spirits. Still, in those days, Israel walked mostly according to the flesh, although, even then, some had awakened elect spirits. So, because most did not walk according to the minds of awakened spirits, but heeded the thoughts in their unruly minds of flesh, God threatened their flesh, to force some semblance of obedience to His Laws, for their own good. And, if a soul wilfully profaned the Sabbath, that soul was effectively declaring, “We should not serve God but only serve ourselves!” Since such a declaration could lead many infantile and foolish souls into the destructive chaos of self worship or idol worship—or into a false worship of God, into the kind of worship that prioritized works for rewards of Satan’s world order above the works for God, the kind of false worship often practised by the church Israel—God was very strict.
Of course, we now see how the profaning of God’s Sabbath has lead to many into humanism, the worship of self and other human beings. Most so-called “Christian” churches today strive to falsely “sanctify” themselves, with “sacraments” and the humanistic teachings of fake preachers. Thus, they break God’s Sabbath laws, because they do not set aside even one day to do God’s works according to His teaching and training of their spirits. Instead, they pretend to observe the Sabbath by going to their churches on a weekday, on Sunday, seating themselves silently below an esteemed human god who lectures them from the top of a Roman-like pulpit, pull out their wallets to pay homage to that human god, using the currency of Satan’s world order, then go home with esteemed minds of flesh feeling very “holy” and sanctimonious. To prevent this kind of hypocrisy, God even allowed a death sentence, as the maximum penalty for the malicious, deliberate breaking His Sabbath laws, for these kinds of deeds which attempted to lead His people away from His sanctification. Of course, as usual, God did not assign any minimum penalty. So teaching judges could lead a sinner into repentance and total forgiveness. Then, even if one did not repent, yet also did not lead anyone else astray, that one was to be expelled from the church of Israel. A harmless unbeliever was to be treated like a Gentile.
Therefore, since we see how seriously God treated the fourth-order laws—how He gave the Sabbath laws a higher priority than His laws against murder, sexual immorality, theft, lies and greed, how He even assigned a maximum penalty of death for Sabbath breakers—we cannot possibly interpret this as a command to sit around and do nothing all day. For God did not kill people for refusing to relax, and God even stated that this kind of idleness, this kind of fake “Sabbath,” led to sinful thoughts, not to holiness and sanctification, which was the purpose of a real Sabbath. So let me be perfectly clear that absolutely nothing found in God’s Word ever defines the Sabbath day as a day to physically rest, as a day to do nothing, designed only for the physical, mental or emotional well-being of our flesh, as some like to define it. For doing nothing is never a “sign” of a relationship between us and God, nor a “sign” of how God “sanctifies” us. Rather, doing nothing is the opposite. Doing nothing is a “sign” that we have no real relationship with God, that we are not working beside Him so we may learn truth and His ways from Him, for our genuine sanctification. Doing nothing is not “holy,” not being set apart to serve God alone, to do His works according to His will and for His purposes. We sleep at night for our physical, mental and emotional health, or take some days off work. God’s order of a day—which begins at sunset and lasts until the next sunset—begins with an evening meal, a few hours of relaxation and family conversations, followed by a good sleep. Then it ends with our works in the daylight, from sunrise to sunset. So we get all the rest we need at the beginning of each day, from sunset until sunrise. Rest and restoration is a beginning. But the Sabbath was to be an end, a goal of all our works in the week. It is the seventh day. Even God worked for six days, so He could rest on the last day of the week. Likewise, the seventh day also begins with an evening meal, a few hours of relaxation and family conversations, followed by a good night’s sleep. Then the labour of that seventh day is to be “holy,” dedicated entirely to God. A Sabbath was to be a day to serve God.
Most Jewish and Christian Sabbath days are utter nonsense. A biblical Sabbath day involves learning God’s truths as His faithful disciples, being trained to apply those truths wisely, seeking the counsel of God regarding the works needed for one’s brothers and sisters in the church, praying for God to grant spiritual blessing in heavenly places, for the inner joy of His people, rejoicing in the fellowship of God and His people, as well as many other good works done exclusively for God alone. And God treated this “holy” day, this day set apart for Him and His purposes alone, so seriously that He even commanded a death penalty for anyone who intentionally and publicly spurned His demand for it. God condemned selfish ambition for personal gain so much that anyone who deliberately refused to do His good works, anyone who refused to learn His ways from Him, anyone who also taught others to spurn His sanctification, was to be executed. A Sabbath was to be a “sign” between God and His people, a “sign” of their relationship. And a relationship between a member of God’s church God and is that of a child learning to do the Father’s works rightly and well by working beside the Father, or a disciple being taught and trained by the wisest, most loving and most authoritative Teacher who ever lived. That “sign” also pointed to a future time, when Jesus would fulfill the fourth-order laws.
This Sabbath “sign” told each of us that it is “Yahweh who sanctifies you,” that God is the only One able to set apart each life for His purposes. And “everyone who profanes” this day, which was to be “holy,” does so by not serving God on this day. Since we know that “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17, ESV), the purpose of a Sabbath cannot be to do nothing. A Sabbath day is for us to do the works of God according to His will and for His purposes.
If anyone takes the time to read the Gospel accounts of how Jesus, who is our God, always worked on Sabbath days, one will soon see how what I say is true. God set apart the Sabbath day, the seventh day, from the very beginning, in the days of Adam and Eve. It is not just an Old Covenant Law. And Jesus fulfills the Sabbath in His New Covenant relationship with us. Jesus teaches and trains us to know and practise this most ancient command of God, made at the beginning of time. And, since this was a command given to Adam and Eve, it is for all their descendants too. It is for all human beings on earth. All are to dedicate at least one day of the week to serve God alone. “On the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Gen. 2:23, NKJV). God’s created property for Himself, the heavens and the earth, for six days. But, after He created things for Himself, He definitely continued to work, even every moment of every day. For He had to maintain the existence and well-being of all His creations. For, if He stopped maintaining them for even a nanosecond, they would cease to exist. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. When He sanctified this day, it means He set it apart from the other six days of the week, set it apart exclusively for His purposes. Here we see that God rested from “His work” of creating things for Himself. But God did not cease working at all. And we must ask why God chose to create all things in the first place? He created all so He could love the living creatures He made, especially His children. And that love involved serving them, working continuously for them, even for the rest of eternity. We know, with all certainty, that God did not rest completely, did not sit and do nothing on that seventh day. Otherwise, all He created would have vanished. Therefore, when it says that “He rested on the seventh day from all His work,” it meant that He merely ceased from creating new things for Himself, but continued to work for His creations, through His love for them. And, since that day, He has spent every moment serving all the living creatures He created through His love, especially His elect children. Obviously, the reason God created all things was because He wanted to love and serve them. And, to truly understand the Sabbath rest, we must comprehend this.
God's Word declares, “Yahweh has made all things for Himself, yes, even the wicked for the day of doom” (Prov. 16:4, NKJV). All things, even the wicked (like devils and their offspring), were made by God in the beginning, for Himself, for His purposes, through a plan that would, in the end, work good for His beloved elect. Through His creation of those wicked ones, He would work good for His elect, a greater, eternal, spiritual good that would be well-worth the cost of all temporary wickedness worked upon the flesh of those living in the training grounds of this material universe. For the elect spirits had to learn to hate that evil and undo its works, to reject anything which did not fulfill the loving will and purposes of God. They had to learn to desire the fulfilling of all His Law inside them and through them, just as Christ, the living exemplification of God Law or Word did (I John 3:8). At the creation, God made all good and evil spirits for Himself, for His purposes, the earth and all three “heavens,” this material space-time continuum and the spiritual space-time continuum. Then, after six days, He stopped working for Himself and laboured continuously through love for His creations.
We also see other Scriptures that teach us how God made all things for Himself, that is, for His own purposes. “Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory [i.e., for His good opinion]; I have formed him, yes, I have made him” (Is. 43:7, NKJV). God’s spiritual power has been transformed into the material energy, and He defines all time and space in the material universe. Thus, our flesh and all material substances ultimately depend on His will in directing His power. Then all eternal spirits of life in all living things directly exist through the gift of His spiritual power, all except elect human beings, whose spirits come from His “breath,” that is, directly from His very Spirit, as “children” of His uncreated Being. For God is the Spirit who created both the spirits and the flesh of all His people, and did so for His glory, so He could express His good opinion of them in His love for them, which He will do throughout eternity, while He serves them as His most beloved. His Word also says, “All things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16, NKJV). God could have no other reason for creating all things, other than for Himself, since God existed alone before the beginning of time, with nothing and no one to serve except Himself. His Spirit existed in a timeless state, in an “eternal now” with no beginning nor end, where the only movement that could be called “time” occurred through a progression of His Spirit’s thoughts. So He, like the elect whose spirits originate from His Spirit, desired someone to love and serve, in order to fulfill His existence. None but Satan, his demons and his children were created without love, without any desire to serve.
Since the moment God created time in the material universe, His creations propagated, physically reproducing the same physical forms He originally created. But God continuously controls even that, and also places the spirits of life in those physical bodies. So God still serves all the life He created, all day and every day. God has never stopped working. For Jesus, our God Himself, told us: “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working” (John 5:17, NKJV). And Jesus stated this regarding the Sabbath. So Jesus declared that God did not stop working at any time, not ever, not on the seventh day after creation, nor on any Sabbath day after that. God is always serving all He has created. And God does not lie! Nor can God ever break His own laws. Therefore, what Jesus really told us was that the Sabbath is not a day to cease from literally all works, as the Pharisees taught. For even God, who declared that He rested on the seventh day, and did not lie, did not rest from literally all works on that seventh day, nor on any Sabbath day after that. In reality, God rested from works for Himself on that seventh day. He stopped creating new things on earth and in heaven for His own purposes. Instead, the only works God did from the beginning of that seventh day, and forever after that, were labours of love for all the