In 1989 I began reading more and more about the Shabbat and was struggling on whether to keep it or not. I did not grow up keeping the Shabbat, and when I came to know the Lord we were not keeping the Shabbat. I was growing in the Lord and involved in ministry, and was taught that the Shabbat is not for today, it is not for the body of Messiah.
But I would read scriptures like the one above and in the ten commandments and wonder why are we not keeping the Shabbat. I was told that the body of Messiah started meeting on the first day of the week to celebrate the resurrection of Yeshua, and I went with that for a few years. But over and over again, why is the command about the Shabbat the only one of the ten commandments we don’t keep.
Since I came to know the Lord I have been reading the bible every morning and over time a developed a reading pattern that I liked. So in 1989 when I started the cycle of the gospels, and the epistles, every time I looked to see when or where God switched the Shabbat. Not when man did, but when God did, or when Yeshua did. I never saw it.
Yes, I did see where the early believers met on the first day of the week, but after studying up on that, that was a Saturday evening service to meet after the close of the Shabbat. Yeshua didn’t change that.
So I saw that Yeshua didn’t change the Shabbat from the 7th day to the 1st day. Yeshua even said that the Son of Man was Lord of the Shabbat. Well that was it for me, it was time to start keeping the Shabbat.
The above is a short version of my switching to the Shabbat, but it was of the Lord. It was because of scriptures I read all through the bible about keeping Shabbat that I switched to the Shabbat.
Look at the beginning of the verses above, Surely you shall keep my Shabbatot, my Sabbaths, and the Shabbat is holy.
We never read anywhere in the scriptures about the first day of the week being holy.
The Hebrew word that is translated surely is ak, and it is to means to put an emphasis on the subject matter.
Here is the amplified bible translation of it.
And the Lord said to Moses, 13 “But as for you, say to the Israelites, ‘You shall most certainly observe My Sabbaths, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, so that you may know [without any doubt] and acknowledge that I am the Lord who sanctifies you and sets you apart [for Myself] (Amp)
You shall most certainly observe my Shabbats.
I know good and well that the majority of the body of Messiah will not agree with me on this subject matter and one of the main reasons is that it goes against a deep rooted tradition of the church.
Again, this is a short version of my testimony on the Shabbat and I will gladly have discussion with anyone on this as long as we don’t argue. When one begins to argue, one quits listening.
If you are going to study up on this, the first thing I ask you to do, is look and see in the scripture where it says that the Lord told us to switch from the seventh day of the week to the first day.
Revelation 14:12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
Revelation 12:17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. Shabbat Shalom my brothers and sisters in the Lord