A Sabbath to YHWH, part 3a: Who Is the Sabbath For?

American Torah

Is the Sabbath only for the Jews? Or are Gentiles included in the Sabbath covenant too?  This video is part 3a in a series on the weekly Sabbath.  Part 1: What is the Sabbath? Part 2: Why does the Sabbath matter? Part 3: Who is the Sabbath for? Part 4: When is the Sabbath?  You can get this whole series for free (or you can choose a paid subscription option if you want to support this ministry!) at Common Sense Bible Study, https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com.  From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).  This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.  Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://jaycarper.com/ttn Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat

Transcript

00:00This is Jay Carper from AmericanTorah.com and CommonSenseBibleStudy.com, and I'm continuing

00:08our conversation on A Sabbath to Yahweh.

00:12In Part 1, I answered the question of, What is the Sabbath?

00:17Because we can't really talk about it unless we know what it is.

00:21In Part 2, I answered the question, Why is the Sabbath important?

00:26And now in Part 3, I'm going to address the question of, Who is the Sabbath for?

00:34The obvious answer is that the Sabbath is for Israel and Judah.

00:39These are the two kingdoms, the northern and the southern, that the people of Israel divided

00:44into after the reign of Solomon.

00:46But the Bible also contains statements about Gentiles and prophecy as relates to the Sabbath.

00:51And then I'm going to talk about how the scriptures describe the fulfillment of those prophecies

00:57concerning Gentiles.

00:59Let's start with Exodus 31, verses 16 and 17.

01:04Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their

01:08generations as a covenant forever.

01:10It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days Yahweh made heaven

01:17and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.

01:21We've read this passage a couple of times already when answering other questions.

01:26But this gives a pretty clear answer to the question, Who is the Sabbath for?

01:32When God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt, the first commandment he gave them after they

01:36crossed the Red Sea, was to keep the Sabbath.

01:40And then he repeated the commandment in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.

01:45And here again he says, The people of Israel will keep the Sabbath.

01:50So clearly the Sabbath is for the people of Israel.

01:53And that includes Judah.

01:55These are the physical descendants of Jacob, but also include the mixed multitude who came

02:00out of Egypt with them.

02:01The Sabbath was given as a sign of the relationship between God and his people Israel, not just

02:08of the covenant as Sinai, because the Sabbath is a separate covenant all on its own, a covenant

02:14that declares Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh as the people's God, and also acknowledges him as the creator

02:21of heaven and earth.

02:23And at heart, that's really what keeping the Sabbath is all about, is acknowledging Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh

02:29is our God, our creator, and our judge.

02:34Jeremiah 31 contains the defining passage about the new covenant.

02:39This is an excerpt from verses 31 to 33.

02:43Behold, the days are coming, declares Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, when I will make a new covenant with the house

02:47of Israel and the house of Judah.

02:50I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

02:53For example, this passage states that the new covenant is only with the people of Israel

02:58and Judah, not with the Gentiles, not with the nations, not with a non-Jewish church.

03:05And the major difference between the covenant at Sinai and the new covenant is that in the

03:11new covenant, the law, God's law, the same law he gave at Sinai, is written on the hearts

03:17of the people.

03:18This is a profound illustration of God's plan of salvation.

03:23Yahweh was already the people's God when he gave this commandment.

03:27When he prophesied the new covenant, he was already their God, and they were already his

03:32people.

03:33And this is because God's people are defined, not necessarily by their obedience, but by

03:39their heart condition.

03:41It's not circumcision of the flesh that counts, so much as circumcision of the heart.

03:45And that's what it means to be set apart from other peoples.

03:49It doesn't mean just to be different, but it means to have a heart who's willing and

03:54eager to obey God's commandments, to acknowledge him as one's God.

04:00In Romans 2, Paul wrote,

04:03For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

04:08But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not

04:13by the letter.

04:14His praise is not from man, but from God.

04:18Paul was talking about the new covenant.

04:22Circumcision was a sign of the covenant with Abraham.

04:26And since the Hebrews were the descendants of Abraham, that same requirement was included

04:31in the covenant at Sinai.

04:34But it was never a condition for inclusion in the covenant itself.

04:38God never told the Hebrews that they had to be circumcised in order to be rescued from Egypt.

04:43He never told Abraham that he had to be circumcised in order to enter that covenant with God.

04:51But circumcision came later as a sign of the covenant.

04:54Circumcision, like the Sabbath, is an outward acknowledgement of God's sovereignty and our allegiance to him.

05:03The true inheritors of the new covenant are those who are willing to be transformed inside and out and have God's law written on their hearts.

05:12The law that God writes on the hearts of his people in the new covenant isn't a new law that we have to guess at, that isn't written out anywhere.

05:21It's the same law that God gave his people at Sinai.

05:27Now having established that the Sabbath is for the people of Israel and Judah, both the natural descendants of Jacob and those who are grafted in by faith,

05:36let's take a look at what the scriptures say about Gentiles and prophecy.

05:41In Exodus 12, verses 37 and 38, Moses wrote,

05:46And the people of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Sukkot, about 600,000 men on foot besides women and children.

05:53A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds.

05:59This mixed multitude left Egypt right along with the natural descendants of Jacob.

06:05They joined themselves to Israel's God, and when they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai,

06:11they heard God's voice right alongside the natural children of Israel.

06:17God made no distinction, but gave the law to them all.

06:21And by the time that mixed multitude reached the promised land,

06:24they had been absorbed by the various tribes of Israel,

06:28and they received an inheritance in the land right alongside all of the natural descendants.

06:35The law also talks about a group of people called sojourners.

06:38Sojourners are those people who are living among Israel, worshipping Israel's God,

06:44but they haven't yet received an inheritance in the land.

06:48So these are foreigners who have joined themselves to Israel's God.

06:52And in the law, there is no difference between those later sojourners and the native-born,

06:58except when it comes to inheritance in the land.

07:01There are a couple of places where the Torah says,

07:04the native-born will do this, the sojourners can do this.

07:08But those differences can be attributed to the sojourner's lack of property in the land.

07:14They don't have the ability to sow their own crops and raise their own herds,

07:18so there are a couple of minor differences in how they relate to the law.

07:22But in almost every sense, there is no difference between the sojourner and the native-born,

07:29and in fact, several times the law says,

07:33that there will be one law for both the native-born Israelite and the sojourner who lives among you.

07:39The Feast of Booths is also called Sukkot in Hebrew.

08:09But in Scripture, the commandments concerning Sukkot were only given to the people of Israel

08:14who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai.

08:17God didn't go to all the other nations and tell them all about how to keep Sukkot, the Feast of Booths.

08:23But here we have a prophecy of the millennial era,

08:26when Jesus has returned and is ruling personally from Jerusalem,

08:30and it says that all the nations will be required to keep the Feast of Booths,

08:35or they won't receive rain.

08:36So the idea that a commandment was given specifically to Israel

08:41doesn't mean that the commandment doesn't apply to people who are not Israel.

08:47All nations must observe Sukkot in the millennial era.

08:51This is a commandment from God.

08:54Ultimately, all of God's commandments are moral.

08:57There is no distinction in Scripture between moral and civil and ceremonial laws.

09:02Those are categories that men have created to help them make sense of why they should keep this commandment and not that commandment.

09:10But this distinction is entirely artificial.

09:14God never says,

09:15This is a ceremonial commandment, and you can throw that out.

09:19This is a civil commandment, and you keep this if your government is based on that.

09:24And this one is a moral commandment, so that applies to everybody.

09:27That's not what God says.

09:30Every theologian who makes this artificial distinction will tell you that the Feast of Booths is a ceremonial law.

09:37It's not moral. It's not civil.

09:41And yet here we have God Himself saying,

09:43All the nations must keep the Feast of Booths.

09:47And this is because, as I've shown you concerning the Sabbath commandments,

09:51all of God's commandments are moral in nature.

09:55They are all about right and wrong.

09:58They are all about loving God and loving your neighbor.

10:02There are no exceptions.

10:03This is from Ezekiel chapter 47, verses 21 and 23.

10:10It's a little long, so I'm going to put the notes on the next slide.

10:14So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel.

10:18You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you,

10:23and have had children among you.

10:25They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel.

10:29With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.

10:33In whatever tribe the sojourner resides, there you shall assign him his inheritance,

10:39declares the Lord, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh.

10:41The sojourners who reside among you shall be to you as native-born children.

10:47In the millennial era, when Jesus personally reigns from Jerusalem,

10:53the sojourner will be as the native-born.

10:56There is no difference between the native and the sojourner.

11:00The sojourners, those people who have joined themselves to Israel's God,

11:05are grafted into Israel.

11:06God has declared that those former Gentiles will have an inheritance in the land beside the native-born.

11:14They have become part of the ethnic nation of Israel.

11:18Everyone whose faith is in Jesus,

11:21who is trusting in God's grace for their eternal salvation,

11:25all become native-born alike.

11:28There is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile in the millennial era.

11:32This is Jay Carper from americantorah.com and commonsensebiblestudy.com.

11:40In the next part, part 3b,

11:43I'm going to talk about how some of those prophecies about Gentiles are fulfilled

11:48and how that relates to the Sabbath.

11:50I'm going to talk about how some of those prophecies about Gentiles are fulfilled.

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