The Sabbath - Nehemiah to Jesus Site 8
Narrative for Site 8 on the Sabbath Trail
by Pastor Merlin Knowles
During the next few hundred years Sabbath keeping changed from being trampled on to being walled in. God's people reacted very strongly to having been in bondage and they had been allowed to go into bondage, sent into bondage by God as a result of their own choices as they rejected God, but as they came out they realized their sin and they over-reacted in the sense that they began to keep the Sabbath not from a relational viewpoint, but as a legalistic kind of thing, and the pendulum of Sabbath keeping moved from a careless, being trampled on kind of experience, to an experience where they crafted lots and lots of laws to protect the Sabbath to the extent that a person could only walk so many feet on the Sabbath, to the extent that if a person were to spit on the ground it would be called a sin because you might hit a blade of grass and irrigate that blade of grass and then you would be working on the Sabbath. So man made laws, over-reacted to what had happened in the bondage of Israel, and they began to keep the Sabbath in a very legalistic narrow way.
1998
The Sabbath - Nehemiah to Jesus
During the next 450 years the pendulum of Sabbath keeping swung from careless to rigid, from trampling on it to walling it in. Hundreds of laws were crafted by men to protect the Sabbath from being broken. It became a crushing burden, an external form, and a legalistic means to gain righteousness. At the end of this dark period of time, Christ entered His earthly ministry. For over 3 years He worked to correct people's twisted views about God and His special day of rest. Matt. 12:10-14, Matt. 23, Rom. 10:1-4
2008
El sábado - Nehemias a Jesús
Durante los siguientes 450 años el péndulo de guardar el sábado se balanceo entre el descuido y la rigidez, de ser pisoteado al fracaso. Muchas leyes fueron hechas por los hombres para "proteger el sábado" y que este no se rompiese. Se convirtió en una carga extenuante, en una forma externa y en un medio legalista para alcanzar la justicia. Después de este período negro, Cristo entró en su ministerio terrenal. Más de tres años Él trabajo en corregir las ideas preenjuiciadas que las personas tenían sobre Dios y su día especial de reposo. Mateo 12:10-14, Mateo 23, Romanos 10:1-4
2016