The Three Angels' Messages

Hidden Sabbath Truths Part 1 - Sabbath at Creation

These two lectures explore the creation and redemption meaning of the Sabbath. Many new insights are presented which have never been explored before. Clear answers to questions such as: Why didn’t God give Adam and Eve a direct command to keep the Sabbath in Genesis? Why doesn’t Genesis mention an evening and a morning of the seventh day? You can’t afford to miss this one!

The Sabbath has three dimensions in our reasons for keeping it. In this first presentation, Pastor Bohr covers the primary one in which the Sabbath points us back as a memorial to God who created us and to whom we owe joyous and grateful worship because of Him being the source of our very existence.

This lecture answers the question of why Genesis does not record God giving a direct command to Adam and Eve to keep the first Sabbath with Him when He rested. It also shows why God did not say after the Sabbath, as He had at the end of each of the other six days, that the evening and the morning were the seventh day. These things have caused some to erroneously think the Sabbath was only first given to the Jews at Sinai to keep.

God is the center of the creation story and the Sabbath is first of all His day, but it also was given to man as a gift to spend special time with their Creator. Pastor Bohr also discusses what God’s “rest” is and why He is said to still be resting, even though Jesus also said that He and His Father are always at work. This sermon shows why the Sabbath is such a blessing for all men, why it was needed even in perfect Eden, whySabbath is still valid and given to us to “enter His rest”, and why those who call it a curse and that it was meant only for the Jews just do not truly understand the character of God and His purpose for sharing the Sabbath with us.

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God's People to Keep the Sabbath

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. ~ Genesis 2: 2

God sanctified and blessed the day in which He had rested from all His wondrous work. And this Sabbath, sanctified of God, was to be kept for a perpetual covenant. It was a memorial that was to stand from age to age, till the close of earth's history.

God brought the Hebrews out of their Egyptian bondage, and commanded them to observe His Sabbath, and keep the law given in Eden. Every week He worked a miracle to establish in their minds the fact that in the beginning of the world He had instituted the Sabbath....

In the third month they came to the desert of Sinai, and there the law was spoken from the mount in awful grandeur. During their stay in Egypt, Israel had so long heard and seen idolatry practiced that to a large degree they had lost their knowledge of God and of His law, and their sense of the importance and sacredness of the Sabbath; the law was given a second time to call these things to their remembrance. In God's statutes was defined practical religion for all mankind. Before Israel was placed the true standard of righteousness.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep.” Some, who have been anxious to make of none effect the law of God, have quoted this word “sabbaths,” interpreting it to mean the annual sabbaths of the Jews. But they do not connect this positive requirement with that which follows: “For it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” ~ The Review and Herald, August 30, 1898

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THE SEAL OF GOD

Verily My Sabbaths you shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that you may know that I am the Lord that does sanctify you. Exodus 31:13. Had the Sabbath been universally kept, man’s thoughts and affections would have been led to the Creator as the object of reverence and worship, and there would never have been an idolater, an atheist, or an infidel. The keeping of the Sabbath is a sign of loyalty to the true God, “Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” [Revelation 14:7] ~ The Great Controversy, Page 438

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The Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast

Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. Isaiah 8:16.

The living righteous will receive the seal of God prior to the close of probation.

The sign, or seal, of God is revealed in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, the Lord's memorial of creation.... The mark of the beast is the opposite of this—the observance of the first day of the week.

Sundaykeeping is not yet the mark of the beast, and will not be until the decree goes forth causing men to worship this idol sabbath. The time will come when this day will be the test, but that time has not come yet.

No one has yet received the mark of the beast. The testing time has not yet come. There are true Christians in every church, not excepting the Roman Catholic communion. None are condemned until they have had the light and have seen the obligation of the fourth commandment. But when the decree shall go forth enforcing the counterfeit sabbath, and the loud cry of the third angel shall warn men against the worship of the beast and his image, the line will be clearly drawn between the false and the true. Then those who still continue in transgression will receive the mark of the beast.

If the light of truth has been presented to you, revealing the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and showing that there is no foundation in the Word of God for Sunday observance, and yet you still cling to the false sabbath, refusing to keep holy the Sabbath which God calls “my holy day,” you receive the mark of the beast. When does this take place? When you obey the decree that commands you to cease from labor on Sunday and worship God, while you know that there is not a word in the Bible showing Sunday to be other than a common working day, you consent to receive the mark of the beast, and refuse the seal of God.

In a little while every one who is a child of God will have His seal placed upon him. O that it may be placed upon our foreheads! Who can endure the thought of being passed by when the angel goes forth to seal the servants of God in their foreheads? ~ Maranatha, Page 211