Why did god tell us to keep holy the sabbath day?

Answer 1

God wants us to keep the Sabbath day resting and peaceful because on the seventh day of creating the world he rested, and he wants us to rest on that day because he wants us to take the time out of that day to worship him, but we should also worship him and please him in everything we do by doing it to the best of our abilities.

Answer:

The Commandment reads: "REMEMBER the Sabbath day, to keep it Holy..." (Ex.20:8).

Remembering is a "spiritual" act. A "thought process of the heart.".

"For we know that the law is SPIRITUAL..." (Rom.7:14).

But the Commandment is longer than that... going on to explain that our "remembrance" of the "seventh day" IS A REMINDER OF CREATION!

"For IN SIX DAYS the Lord MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH, THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IN THEM IS, and rested the SEVENTH DAY..." (verse 11; also see Genesis chapter 1).

So, it's God's Command that man, whom He created in His image to eventually be born into His Divine Family and become His Children -- to NOT FORGET HIM!

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF GOD..." (Rom.8:16).

But, because the first two people "chose another god" to worship and obey [Commandment #1] at the beginning of man's existence: the world has "hated remembering" God's Hallowed seventh-day Sabbath ever since.

Men began to pick and choose their own days to praise and worship their gods. They "forgot" God's Commandment, the remembrance of which would kept him mindful of God, mindful of creation, and mindful that he was specially created by God, and not some "meaningless cosmic accident."

And because man has failed to keep the seventh day of God's Divinely-inspired week in "Holy Remembrance;" he has "forgotten God"... and has "forgotten creation."

And he now, in these last days, teaches "creation without a Creator" and calls it "Evolution."

And because man has arrogantly "forgotten God and creation"... LIFE HAS NO MEANING. No purpose. Man came into existence, accidentally. Man lives a pointless life, randomly. And man's ultimate future is to merely die.

That's why God commands us to "remember creation." That we might look to the future and see what our True potential is. That we might understand that this Satan-influenced and guided world to which man sold himself into bondage, is dying... and is only a temporary "training ground" to teach man about "sin"... that he might learn to "reject" what's bad and learn to "choose what's good." That the "survival of the fittest" isn't what life is about.

It reminds man that He can LIVE FOREVER!

Although the "physical" creation was completed in the beginning -- God is still working on the "spiritual" phase of His plan to make mortal man into His IMMORTAL CHILDREN!

"Behold, I shew you a mystery... WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED... For this corruptible must put on INCORRUPTION, and this mortal must put onIMMORTALITY." (I Cor.15:51-53)

Being "mortal"... man has many weaknesses and limitations. The greatest of which is his neglect of his spiritual growth in the Lord, his Creator [because he 'forgets'].

If man were to obey the fourth Commandment, the Sabbath day is God's constant... weekly... reminder to "recharge his spiritual batteries" [so to speak]... and to renew his HOPE IN THE LORD's promises of Salvation:

"The creation WAITS in eager expectation FOR THE SONS OF GOD TO BE REVEALED. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it, IN HOPE that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the Glorious Freedom of the Children of God." (Rom.8:20-21 NIV)

Forgetting God's Sabbath has resulted in men's "forgetting God"... and adopting the vain, pointless, futile faith and belief in the HOPELESS religion of "evolution" into their neglected spirits [hearts and minds].

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as WE WAIT EAGERLY FOR OUR ADOPTION AS SONS, the redemption of our bodies.

"For in this HOPE we were saved. But HOPE that is seen is no HOPE at all. Who HOPES for what he already has? But if we HOPE for WHAT WE DO NOT YET HAVE, we wait for it patiently." (verses 22-25)

God wants man to "remember" the Sabbath day every seventh day, that he might renew and restore his mortal, weak, waining HOPE in his Creator [Jesus Christ - John 1:3] from week to week. That he might remember that this wicked, hopeless world isn't going to last forever.

The Sabbath day remembers that all of creation is in the throes of birth.

The Sabbath day reminds the Children of God that they are about to be reborn into God's Immortal Family... and that Jesus Christ -- their DELIVERER -- is coming for them. And that Eternal Life is their future.