THE SABBATH A SIGN OF GOD’S POWER

Notice what a close connection there is between the power of God as manifested in creation and the Sabbath idea. The ninety-second psalm is a psalm, or song, for the Sabbath day. That is the title of the psalm. “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High, to show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound. For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work; I will triumph in the works of thy hands.” How is it that the Lord makes us glad?-Why, when we behold his works, and behold his power in those works, we remember that that power is pledged to us for salvation. And so we triumph in the works of his hands, and it is indeed a psalm, or song, for the Sabbath day, because that day reminds us of the power of God in Christ manifested in creation, and with that comes the blessed assurance that He who has created has also redeemed. The Creator is the Redeemer. The power in creation is the power in redemption.CAS 23.1

The Sabbath always has been, and always will be, a sign of the power of God manifested through Christ. The reason given in the commandment for setting apart the seventh day as the Sabbath, is that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, ... and rested the seventh day.” The Sabbath day, therefore, is a sign of creative power. This sign of creative power always calls our attention to the One who made the heaven and the earth; and it is true that if the Sabbath had always been kept, there never would have been any false religion or idolatry; for the minds of men would have been constantly kept upon the true God, the Creator of the heaven and the earth, as revealed in Jesus Christ.CAS 23.2

And the Sabbath is the one sign to men of this creative power of God whenever it is manifested. There is a striking example of this in the experience of the children of Israel: “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever people hear the voice; of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?” Deuteronomy 4:32-34. Mark the inquiry. You ask from one end of heaven to the other, and you go back to the very day that man was created, the first display of creative power, and inquire whether there has been from that time to this present time such a display of the power of God as was seen in the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt.CAS 24.1

A moment’s thought will show that it was creative power then displayed. This people were delivered by signs and wonders, which were a display of creative power. It took the same power to change Aaron’s rod into a serpent when it was cast down before Pharaoh as it did to create the serpent in the first place. It took the same power to bring darkness over all the face of the land-darkness that could be felt-and yet have light in the dwellings of the children of Israel, as it took in the first place, when God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. It took the same power to divide the waters of the Red Sea, that the children of Israel could go through on dry land, as it did in the first place when the waters were created. That is, there was at that time a display of the creative power of God. So, after the children of Israel had been delivered by such creative power, the Sabbath obligation was repeated, and the Lord said: “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” Deuteronomy 5:15. Some make the mistake of thinking that the Sabbath was merely a sign to the children of Israel of their deliverance from Egypt, and has nothing to do with any other people. The fact is simply this: In the first place, the Sabbath was the sign of creative power. When the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, that same power wrought for their deliverance. When the same God uses the same power, he calls attention again to the same sign as the sign of that power; and so to the children of Israel after their deliverance, the Sabbath was a sign of God’s creative power manifested through Christ in making the heaven and the earth, and it was also a sign of his creative power in delivering them from the land of Egypt.CAS 24.2

But the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt is but a type of the deliverance of the Christian from the power of sin. The Israelites could not observe the Sabbath while in bondage. God delivered them by his own creative power, and thus opened the way for them to keep his Sabbath. He then called attention anew to the Sabbath as the sign of that power which had delivered them, and upon which they were to depend in all their experiences through to the promised land.CAS 25.1