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Advent Lessons

Lesson 4 · July 27, 1895

The Sabbath from Moses to Christ

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Scripture Readings.—; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; .

Review Questions.—(a) What is the law of God? (b) How can this be proved? (c) How did God give it to men? (d) What difference was manifest in the giving of the Decalogue and the giving of other laws? (e) What is the character of this law, and how long will it continue? (f) What is the character of the Sabbath, and how long will it continue?

  1. 1.Of what is the Sabbath a memorial? . . (See note 1.)
  2. 2.To how many of mankind does creation and its memorial pertain? .
  3. 3.What great work did God especially do for Israel? .
  4. 4.How did this manifestation of God's power for Israel compare with other works since the creation? .
  5. 5.What is this work called in which God thus revealed His power? ; see also ; ; ; . (See note 2.)
  6. 6.For what purpose did God thus manifest His mighty power? ; .
  7. 7.Of what is the Sabbath a sign? .
  8. 8.Of what did it in a special sense become a sign to Israel? ; .
  9. 9.What special idolatry did the Lord condemn above all others, and why? ; . (See note 3.)
  10. 10.What day was dedicated to the worship of the sun?
  11. 11.What prohibition did the Lord make concerning these heathen days? .
  12. 12.Mention some of the most noted instances of this idolatry on the part of Israel. See ; ; ; .
  13. 13.What was always associated with Baal worship? Ans. Sabbath breaking. See ; .
  14. 14.What reform did a return from idolatry always demand? ; .
  15. 15.What blessing does the Lord pronounce upon the man who observes the Sabbath? .
  16. 16.Is this confined to the Jews? .
  17. 17.What promises are made to the eunuchs and strangers (gentiles)? .
  18. 18.What reform did the Lord call for respecting the Sabbath? .
  19. 19.What was one of the sins manifest among Israel after the restoration? .
  20. 20.How were they reproved? .
  21. 21.Who effected reform in this respect, and how? .

Notes

1. The Sabbath is a memorial not simply of creation, but of God, the Creator, the only God. "I am God," He tells us, "and there is none else beside Me." This must be the case; for if God is Creator, all else are creatures. The Sabbath is a remembrancer of the great and only God, and the creation is the greatest evidence of His Godhead.

2. Every extraordinary manifestation of God's power to the world is the showing forth of the same power by which the worlds were created. The creation of the heavens and the earth is the greatest manifestation that earth knows, for nothing would be greater than calling them out of nothing. The next greatest display of power was the redemption of His people from the chiefest of earthly opposing powers, in which the gods of the nations were proved to be vanity. This redemption from Egypt, this making of Israel a sanctified or separated people, was a display of God's great power such as had never been seen since the earth was created. God did this to show to Israel and the world that He alone was God, and to spread abroad His name, or character, in the earth. As the Sabbath was a memorial of God's creative power in the beginning, so it became to Israel not only a memorial of creation, but a memorial of the same power manifest in redemption and sanctification; and so it becomes to every child of God.

3. The oldest idolatry which history records is sun worship, and it was also the most licentious. (See "Lord's Day," part 2, chapter 2.) As Sunday was dedicated to the sun, the times prohibited by the Lord, the times observed by Manasseh, must have included the festival of Sunday, the great rival of the Sabbath of the Lord.

Bible texts in this lesson

Exodus 20:8-11 · Isaiah 45:18 · Deuteronomy 4:32-35 · Isaiah 63:7-14 · Psalms 77:13-20 · Deuteronomy 5:15 · Deuteronomy 4:19 · Deuteronomy 17:3 · Ezekiel 8:15 · Ezekiel 8:16 · Leviticus 19:26 · Exodus 32:1-6 · 1 Kings 16:30 · 1 Kings 16:31 · 2 Kings 21:1-6 · Jeremiah 17:21-27 · Isaiah 56:1-7 · Nehemiah 13:16-22 · Mark 2:27 · Deuteronomy 4:33 · Deuteronomy 4:34 · Deuteronomy 4:32 · Deuteronomy 7:8 · Deuteronomy 9:26 · 1 Chronicles 17:20 · 1 Chronicles 17:21 · Nehemiah 1:10 · Deuteronomy 4:35 · Isaiah 63:12 · Ezekiel 20:20 · Ezekiel 20:12 · Numbers 25:1-6 · 1 Kings 18:22 · Jeremiah 17:21-23 · Ezekiel 20:16 · Ezekiel 20:18-20 · Jeremiah 17:24-27 · Isaiah 56:2 · Isaiah 56:3 · Isaiah 56:4-7 · Isaiah 58:1 · Isaiah 58:12 · Isaiah 58:13 · Nehemiah 13:16 · Nehemiah 13:17 · Nehemiah 13:18 · Nehemiah 13:19-22

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