Genesis chapter two, in my Bible, it's page five. Let's just read the first three verses. Genesis two, let's go back to verse 31 of chapter one, the last verse of chapter one. Genesis 1, 31. God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Thus, the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day, God completed his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it, he rested from all his work which God had created and made." Let's just stop there. As I mentioned several times, this is a bad chapter division. Chapter 1 should actually end with chapter 2, verse 3. I looked up again, the guy, one of the guys who actually divided your Bible up into verses and chapters is a guy named Stephanos. At the end of the 1600s, he took it to himself to take the scriptures and divide verses. And the legend goes he did most of that while riding on horseback. And some think everyone on a horse wants a buck, but here's a bad chapter to read. It actually belongs to chapter one, but that's just written either here or there. We start now with the seventh day. And this is a special day. It's spoken of differently than the rest. The heavens and the earth are finished. We covered that now, the first six days of creation. It's all done. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. Man and woman are created. They're blessed. They're on the earth. They're married. And God says at the end of chapter one, it's very good. It's very good. And then in chapter two, when God, the seventh day comes along, It says God rested, and God enjoyed, and God looked at all he made. It's a beautiful picture. I want to take this apart. The seventh day, there's no mention here that there was evening and there was morning. In fact, notice here, the seventh day has no end. There's no mention to when it ends. But that doesn't really matter, just that's how it is. When you see the word there, he rested, most of your versions have, mine has. Don't think of the term that God was tired, because of course that's ridiculous. God never gets tired or weary. He never slumbers or sleeps. The word rested just means he stopped. He stopped creating. The word rested in the Hebrew is the word Shabbat, Sabbath. So we get the word Sabbath from, also, Well, Shabbat, Sabbath, the Sabbath rest. Exodus 31 says, on the seventh day, he ceased from labor. He stopped. It gets tired. God has no need to rest. In fact, you need to know, don't think that God just sat down and then did nothing for the rest of time. Remember Jesus in John chapter 5? Remember when he healed the man who was lame for 38 years? Remember what Jesus says? My father is working until now, and I'm working, meaning All this time, God the Father has been working. But what Jesus is referring to there in chapter five is God the Father is working on redeeming back the world to himself. God's been working since Genesis, the garden. We'll see it in chapter three, as soon as man falls, God gets to work. He starts bringing mankind back to himself. And God is ceaselessly working all kinds of things. This just means he stopped creating. It's done. He finished the work. It is finished, you could add to this. He completed it all and he rested. To cease, to stop, it means completion. And so God then sits down and enjoys or has great satisfaction in what he made. He's resting in what he made. The last verse of chapter one says, it was very good. God doesn't exaggerate. When God looked down at what he had made, he said, that's exactly how I want it. And what he's seeing there is, think of it, you have the world and everything in it. All the animals, all in the air and the sky and the sea. The universe is spinning like clockwork. All the stars and planets and star systems. The earth itself is spinning and revolving around its sun. And everything is exactly as God said it should be. Perfect world. And God then rests and you could say enjoys or takes enjoyment from what he has made. Remember, everything God makes Everything God does is for his own enjoyment. It's for his own glory. Everything. As is the world. It's all finished, and he's very pleased with it. There's nothing else needs to be done. This again rules out evolution. It's finished. It's done. There's nothing else. Nothing's going to change into something else. Everything that needs to be created has been created. Now it's going to just move on on its own. Everything's going to reproduce after its kind, the animals, the trees, even the humans. It's all done. It's finished. The work of creation is done. Remember Jesus, I quote that verse in John 5, 17. Jesus said, my father is working. Well, here he ceased creating. So God created everything. Genesis 1 says six days. On the seventh day, he rests. That's just a pattern. One thing God is doing here is setting a pattern now for the rest of human history of a seven-day week, which has been going on for the rest of history, a seven-day week. Exodus 20, verse 9 and 11. It's on your sheet there. It says, six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, and I shortened it, there's no such word, four. You'll work six days, but the seventh day, Saturday, you will not work, why? Because God in six days made the heavens and the earth to see that all is in Him, and He rests on the Sabbath, therefore you will too. You're gonna do now forever what God did. God sets the pattern of a work week, with one day off, not a two-day weekend, which we have today. I mentioned this before, during the French Revolution back in the 1700s when they decided they're gonna kick God out of their country. They decided to go to a 10-day week. That fell apart real quick. Real quick, it didn't work. But they just decided since God said a seven-day week, we'll make it a 10-day week. God set this cycle, all of our human cycles are based around this seven-day week. Now the rabbis taught, in this, and using the words here, if you go to Exodus, it's on your sheet, Exodus 40, verse 33, the same words that are used here, God ceased from all his works. It's also a temple language, as we've discussed already, Exodus 40, 33, speaking to Moses, he erected the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, hung up the veil for the gateway of the court, thus Moses finished all the work. And if you keep reading in chapter 40 of Exodus, what happens next is God moves in. Moses finished all the work, and God moves in. I have it on the sheet there. The glory of the Lord, verse 34. The cloud covered a tent of meaning, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 1 Kings 8-11, when Solomon finished building the temple, when they finished building the temple, when they brought the Ark of the Covenant in, remember that? They carried it in, put it inside to hold it. As soon as they did that, they all had to evacuate, because God's glory filled the temple, the place filled with smoke, everybody had to get out. So as they finished the work, God moved in. And many of the rabbis taught for centuries. That's a picture of what's happening here in Genesis 2. God finished building his beautiful paradise, his beautiful world. Now he's sitting back. He moved in. He lives here. This is where he's at now. But get that beautiful picture. Get the picture of all this now. It's gorgeous. It really is. This beautiful world, and God himself is in it. God is everywhere, of course. But he's manifesting himself here, as chapter three tells us. He would come walking through the garden in the evenings. Went to that down the road. Let's look at the big picture of this, though. Before we get down to the smaller details. This is the story of the Bible. What you see right here is the story of scripture. Because what happens next, as you know, in chapter three, man sins, this whole thing is ruined. And for the rest of human history, for the rest of the Bible, God moves and works to bring it back to this. I have it in a sheet there, just in very big outline form. God created a world where he could be in intimate fellowship with his creatures. He is, he's there with them. Picture that. God and man in perfect fellowship, nothing between them, no sin, no evil. Everything's right, everything's good, no sickness, no death, no nothing, it's just beautiful. Because everything God makes is beautiful. But chapter three, the fellowship was broken by man's rebellion. Dorcas just mentioned that. And at that point, the creator and his creation were separated. God leaves the garden. God leaves the earth, I believe. We'll get to that later. Thirdly, because of that, God himself then shapes all of human history. God is sovereign. We know that. His plan then is to bring the Messiah into the world, his son. to buy it all back, to redeem it all back to him, as Colossians 1.20 tells us. He bought everything back through the blood of his son. Fourthly, on your sheet there, when that's all finished, when salvation is, when God's done with his entire plan, in the end, it's gonna go back to what you read here in chapter two. When finished, God will once again dwell on earth with his creation in loving fellowship. That's Revelation chapter 21 and 22. The Bible starts with this beautiful picture. It ends, the last two chapters, with this same beautiful picture, but much better, much expanded, even greater than this. That's the course of history. That's the big 30,000-foot view of what God is doing. That's the story of the Bible. God made it beautiful and wonderful for his glory, for man's pleasure. Sin ruined it. God sent Christ to buy it back. And in the end, it's all back again. Picture where we are here at chapter 2. these first three verses. God's marvelous creation is finished. And again, I say this a lot, I don't mean to, but I hope you take time to look at creation. It's gorgeous. Even in this fallen world, it's gorgeous. What God makes is beautiful. The universe is functioning like clockwork. The earth is perfectly spinning and revolving around its sun like God planned it to do. The earth is covered with living creatures of every kind in the air, on the land, in the sea. And in charge of all of that is the man and the woman made in his image whom God created. He put them in charge of it all. Run this for me. Make this for, this is all for you. Use this. I give it all to you. And a man and his wife are perfectly in harmony with each other. They love each other. They're married to each other. And God himself is in fellowship with them. And they're in perfect fellowship with him. They're in joyful rest with God. And God is joyfully resting with them. That's what he made. That was his, that's what he did. That was his intention from the very beginning. Get that word rest. I use that deliberately. God did all of this. It's peace, it's rest. The word Eden means delight. They're delighting in everything they see. They're delighting in their fellowship with God. God himself is delighting in what he has made. And God's especially delighting in the man and woman whom he has made. It's a beautiful picture. Now, we just saw here in chapter two, verse one, God rested. God's Sabbath, Sabbath. That then sets up for the rest of biblical history, this idea of Sabbath rest, the rest of God, God resting, God's rest. Again, Paul, not the alliteration here. I have seven steps here. for the Sabbath, and all we're gonna do is review these things. This is a huge, just studying the Sabbath is a huge study. But notice he hallowed that day, it says. He set apart, he pronounced that day holy. No other days, there are holy things, but there are no holy days, but now there's a holy day. This day is holy, he says, because God rested on the seventh day, says he hallowed that day. Like we pray, hallowed be thy name means above all the other days is this day. God hallowed it. And so for the rest of time, this works through this. Now, of course, you know, step number one, we just saw it here, the Sabbath rest created. God rested on the seventh day, that creates the Sabbath day, that creates that seventh day of rest. Sadly, number two, as you know, we get in chapter three, next time, Lord, we'll know it. The Sabbath rest gets corrupted. Now that's a huge, a huge theme in scripture. When sin entered the world through the sin of Adam and Eve, the perfect rest between God and his creation was broken, severed. And man and God became separated. Before this, man and God, there's nothing between them. When man fell, sin came between them. In fact, man gave his dominion to Satan. A man and God became separated and fallen man became hasta. Remember, before this, God would come into the garden. They would hear him walking in the evening. Actually, they would run to him. Abba, Father, Creator. What happens after the fall? They run from him. They run from him. And God has to go after them. And for the rest of human history, we run from God. One Southern preacher, David Morris, quotes a lot. Fred used to, too. My part of my salvation was this. I ran from God as hard as I could, and he chased me down. That's salvation. That's the rest of human history. We run from God now. Just read the books of Ecclesiastes, how the world, everything now is vanity and vexation and hard. Everything falls apart. Man, remember I said earlier, the whole universe is created for man. Man's not just some small speck in this huge universe. Man is the reason the universe exists. When man fell, everything fell. The Earth fell. As we'll see in Chapter 3, the Earth starts now producing thorns and thistles. Disease will start creeping and death comes into the world. I'm sure star systems now start exploding and things start going wrong that never went wrong before. Billy Graham said in one of his books that the Earth was in the major key. When man fell, it was pushed into the minor key. And ever since then, it's been like that. As you know, this world, for as beautiful as it is, is full of sadness and sorrow and sickness and death and trouble. Everything rots. Everything breaks. Everything comes to an end. All things pass in this world. God didn't make it that way. Sin did. That's what happened. Some verses there in your sheet, there's many I could have given you. Romans 5, verse 12. Therefore, just as through one man, that's Adam, sin entered into the world. Get that picture, that's an important phrase. Because of what Adam and Eve did, sin now entered God's perfect world. Sin entered the world and death through sin. The wages of sin will always be death. The soul that sins must die. Even a sinful world will one day have to be remade and destroyed. because of sin. And so death spread to all men because of all sin. We're going to cover more of that verse, we'll get to chapter three. But what Adam did affected the whole human race. Every human being in Adam fell when he fell. And from that point on, every son and daughter of Adam and Eve is born sinful, is born estranged from God, is born running from God. And God then, for the rest of human history, has the amazing, it amazes us that God comes after us. chases us down. Isaiah 59 verse two. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you that he does not hear. Our sin separates us from God. The lost, those who are unsaved, are separate from God. They may think they know God, they don't. Their sin is a wall between them and God. Unless that's taken out of the way, they'll never have fellowship with God, ever. In Romans 8, 7 and 8, the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God. Notice this. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not able to do so. And those who are in the flesh cannot. The lost are not able now to serve God unless their hearts are set. That's why Jesus said, you must be born again. The lost no longer have the capacity now to obey and serve God. because of the fall. So that's number two, the Sabbath got corrupted, that rest got broken, our peace with God was taken away, and now the rest of human history is laboring under this struggle of sin and death and guilt and all the rest of it. Number three, Nershi, you have the Sabbath covenant commanded. About 2,500 years later, when God comes to Moses, he commands them as part of Israel's covenant community keep the Sabbath. You know these verses. They have on your sheet there again. Exodus 20 verse 8. This is the fifth commandment. This is the fourth commandment. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter your male or your female servant, or your cattle, or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy." And that's part of the law. That was on one of those tablets, the Ten Commandments. God tells Israel through Moses, for now on, Sabbath is Saturday. In fact, they keep the Sabbath from Friday at evening when the sun goes down till Saturday. Just remember in Genesis 1, there was evening, there was morning one day. Their day started in the evening. But God says, from now on, because of my creation ordinance, you will keep the Sabbath. Exodus 31, 12 and 13 is on your sheet. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, but as for you, speak to the sons of Israel saying, you shall surely observe my Sabbath, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, and you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. And verse 16 says, so the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. You could not be part of the covenant community of Israel if you didn't keep the Sabbath. This becomes now a covenant. If you're a Jew and you want to be right with God, you must keep the Sabbath. If you break the Sabbath, you've broken the covenant, the penalty was death. Even the foreigners who came among them must keep the Sabbath. And the proselytes who convert to Judaism must be taught to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath was like the central pillar of Jewish religion. It still is today in most places. But it was a central pillar they gave. It was required. But the Sabbath covenant was given to Israel as a binding thing. You break the Sabbath, you've broken your right to live in Israel. It was a central part of their religion. And as Dean just mentioned, the Sabbath also was meant to, think about this. In their culture, you work six days a week. Now, the pagans all around them didn't have this. They would work you seven days a week. If you were a slave, you worked seven days a week. Now, the kings and the rich got days off. But in the world around them, most of the pagans didn't have anything like this. If you were a slave, you would work your slaves seven days a week until they dropped. God's building in their society one day off. No, it's not just for you, but also for the foreigner among you, for your servants, even for the animals. Give them a day off. That's a great kindness. But the Sabbath also was supposed to remind them, take a day off, but don't just sit and watch television. Take a day off. Not that they had television back then. And think about two things. On your sheet there. First of all, that God is creator of all things. We saw this already twice, Exodus 20, God says this, verse eight through 11. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Why? For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth. Keep the Sabbath day to remind yourself that God is the creator of all things. That's one of the things that would, in other words, stop your secular activities. I mean, that's wrong. You're plowing and you're reaping and you're whatever you do all week long, herding your cattle, stop. Take a day off and remind yourself that God is the creator of all things. Think what a blessing that would be to your soul to do that. Stop doing what you're doing. Remember back in their day too, a work day was a lot harder than ours are. They didn't work eight hours a day. Women worked from sunrise to sunset just trying to make a meal for the day. You had to. And you worked hard all week long. So here's one day, stop working, sit, and remember, think about your creator. And secondly, this is one I really love, God is their Redeemer. Deuteronomy 5, verse 15, God tells him this. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, notice this, therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. I gave you this Sabbath for you to stop and think, wait a minute, I used to be a slave. To tell your children, we used to be slaves, but God redeemed us. to remember God as their creator, remember God as their redeemer. The Sabbath day was meant for those two purposes, to do these great things. Again, any society who would do something like, you have one day off a week, where you stop and think about God, because the theory was all week long, you didn't have much time to do that, because you're working hard all week. But one day a week, you're gonna stop, you're gonna rest, you and your family, your community are gonna think about God, you're gonna praise God for creator, you're gonna praise God for saving you, That's a beautiful thing. This is a great kindness to them. It really is. Consider what God is telling them to do. Again, because all the nations around them didn't do this. They worked till you drop. If you were a servant or if you were poor, you worked and worked and worked and worked. Your poor animals worked seven days a week. But in God's covenant community, you stop one day. It's by law. And you will reflect on who God is and what he's done. That's a beautiful thing. So that was the Sabbath covenant. given Israel, that covenant lasted for centuries. And now we come into the New Testament. I call this the Sabbath confirmed, I should actually call it the Sabbath corrected. As you know, over the centuries, God gave certain laws on the Sabbath, you couldn't kindle a fire, you couldn't walk more than, I think it's like half a mile if you do the math, you couldn't lift a heavy load, some things you couldn't do. Well, the Pharisees come along, And over the years, here's God's law. They built all these laws around God's law to keep you from breaking God's law. Jesus said several times, you exalt the commandments of men as if they were commandments of God. For example, the Pharisees turned the Sabbath into a drudge. If you were alive in Jesus' day, I'm sure they dreaded the Sabbath coming. They told him, for example, on the Sabbath day, you could pick up your child. But if your child has something in his hand, if you pick him up, you're breaking the Sabbath. If someone in the field passed out, you could go out there and make them comfortable, but you couldn't take them back in the house or pick them up, because now you're doing work. If someone died, you couldn't bury them. A whole bunch of just laws that weren't in the Bible. And then you had what I would call the Sabbath police. Remember how Jesus is out with his disciples walking on the road? It's a Sabbath day, and they're picking grain. Hey, you can't do that. It's like these guys would ride around in their, they didn't have motorcycles, they'd ride around just looking for anybody who's breaking this Sabbath. If we catch you breaking, remember Jesus healed that guy, the blind man? All he did was spit in the ground, take some mud, put it in his eyes. You can't do that in the Sabbath. It's like these Sabbath police, and I'm sure many, many Jews would dread the Sabbath. They'd probably stay in the house and wouldn't go out, I would. sure as it is you're going to go out and break some kind of law and they were always following Jesus trying to get remember in the temple or in the synagogue two or three times he'd heal somebody you can't do that on the sabbath they'd like a sabbath police so what jesus does when jesus comes along like he did remember jesus corrected the laws about marriage and divorce jesus corrected the laws understanding of murder and adultery and many things. Mary says, you were told that, but I'm telling you, he corrected many things. Well, the Sabbath is one of those that he corrected many times because they had it wrong. Again, some verses there in your sheet. You know, when God's son came into the world, he rescued the Sabbath. He taught the people what the Sabbath actually was because the Pharisees for centuries had corrupted it. They'd ruined it. The Pharisees made the Sabbath into a drudge, into something people should be afraid of. Matthew 11, you should know this verse well. The end of Matthew 11, this wonderful verse, where Jesus says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. He's saying, notice that word rest. Under Jewish law, remember Jesus said in Matthew 23, You Pharisees and scribes, you put heavy burdens on people's back, which they can't carry, and you don't do a thing to lift it. He said that your leaders are telling you all these laws like a burden on your back. And if you do this, you're wrong. If you do that, you're wrong. If you make noise on the Sabbath, if you do this on the Sabbath, he's saying, come to me, and I'll give you rest from all that. But Matthew 11, he says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. You know what a yoke is, right? You have two animals plowing, you put this wooden thing on their shoulders around their necks. That's how you steer them. Jesus is saying, let me steer your life. Let me run your life, he says, and I'll give you rest. Not like these Pharisees that put this heavy burden upon your back. I'll give you rest. I'll give you peace. That's what else it says there. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Now that's the end of Matthew 11. The very next thing you're reading, and you can turn there, do it on your own, is Matthew 12. Remember how it's Matthew 12? Jesus goes to a synagogue, he heals a man, they get all worked up over it, then he's walking away. It's a Sabbath day, and so his disciples are gathering grain and eating some, because they're hungry. And right away, the Jews come out and say, you're breaking the law, you're breaking the law, Moses. Remember what Jesus said, Dean just mentioned it. It's on the sheet there, from Mark, Mark 2, 27, 28. He said to them, the Sabbath was made for man. and not man for the Sabbath. God gave the Sabbath day to be a blessing to men, not a curse. You guys have turned the Sabbath day into a curse. And notice what he says next. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus came under that covenant to correct their misunderstanding of the Sabbath. And he often pointed that out. I think, well, he was faithful in going to synagogue. Synagogue was on a Saturday. But I think he would deliberately do things in there. He knew it would set them off, just so he could teach about the Sabbath laws, and how you guys have it all wrong. Remember that lady who was bent over, and he went to heal her, and he looks around and says, is it right to heal on the Sabbath or not? And they don't want to answer him, because he knows what their opinion is. No, it isn't. He heals this poor woman. He says, this poor daughter of Israel, he says, all these years, and yet you think I shouldn't do it. Jesus corrected their false views of the Sabbath. God made the Sabbath to be a blessing. Like everything God makes is to be a blessing, but you've corrupted it. The Pharisees corrupted everything God did. Now, we come to the big part of this, number five there in your sheet. The Sabbath was created. The Sabbath was under covenant. The Sabbath was, I'm sorry, that was created. The Sabbath was corrupted. The Sabbath became a covenant. Jesus came along and corrected it. Now, the Sabbath completed. or fulfilled. This is a big subject. Let's just touch on this. Remember what God did in Genesis 2, the first three verses. All is at peace. All is beautiful. All is good. God and his creation are in perfect harmony. Nothing between them. Sin broke that. As we read that verse in Mosaic, your sins have separated you from your God. Jesus, God's eternal son, was sent to undo that. It's a big, just a few verses, Isaiah 53, five. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement or scourging that brought us peace. We have no peace with God. Ever since the fall, mankind is not at peace with God, he's at war with God. But Jesus came, God sent his son and he willingly came to be chastised, to be crushed under God's law so that we could once again have peace with God. That's the whole Sabbath now completed or restored to what it's supposed to be. Romans 5.1, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace. Remember Jesus said in John 16, my peace I leave with you. In the world, there is no peace. There's certainly no peace with God. Jesus came to bring us back to God, to take away that sin that separated us from him, peace with God. Colossians 1.20, through him, that means through Jesus, to reconcile. Reconcile means to end. There was a separation. We and our God were separated because of our sin. Jesus came and he brought us back together. Read on. Through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace, how? Through the blood of his cross. Through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven, Jesus came to reconcile, to bring back to God all that had been lost in the fall. He saved us, we who are in Christ. He saved us. He took away our sin so there's no longer anything. Remember what Jesus wore on his head on the cross? Crown of thorns. He's also redeeming the planet. Romans 8 makes that clear. Today, this planet's groaning under the load of sin that we brought it. But one day, even the planet itself will be redeemed by the work of Christ. He's the Redeemer. He brings all things, whether in heaven or earth. And then, this is a little bit symbolic, but I think it's right. This is God in Genesis 2, finish the work. Literally in the words where he completed all the things, he completed it all. Remember Jesus said on the cross, his work was finished on the cross. It is finished. On your sheet there, John 19. After these things, Jesus knowing that all things the raven accompanies, he said, it is finished. Finished. He told his father, I'm going to finish the work. I'm going to do everything he sent me to do. And this may be a little bit symbolic. I'm sure it is. He finished the work and he went and laid him to rest in the garden. Go there if you like. That's just out of one of the commentaries. But Jesus is certainly a picture. That's certainly a picture of what Jesus did. Jesus undid. what the fall did. The fall broke the rest. The fall took away our peace. The fall took away the joy of Eden. Jesus on the cross brought it all back. Number six, the Sabbath converted. I don't know about the word convert, I just had to keep letter C there. The Sabbath fulfilled. The Sabbath made new. Let's work through this. The New Testament picks up on all that Sabbath imagery from the Old Testament and tells you it's in Christ. Let's prove that. Hebrews 4 is on your sheet. I shortened this somewhat. Hebrews 4, 1 through 11. Remember, he's writing to Christians in his day, whoever wrote Hebrews. Saying, therefore, notice, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, he's saying to these Hebrew Christians, listen, You still have the promise that you can enter God's rest. Today, he said that. Still stands. Let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. In other words, he's encouraging, listen, you can enter God's rest right now. And I'm concerned that some of you might miss it. Read on. For good news came to us, meaning the gospel came to us, just as to them but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith. Some didn't believe the gospel and they missed God's rest. And he's saying, I'm concerned about you, that you believe the gospel and enter God's rest. Keep reading. Verse three, for we who have believed, notice, enter that rest. We who have believed in Christ to be the Savior for sin, to be the Lord that the Father sent, we who have trusted Jesus Christ for our salvation, we've entered God's Sabbath rest. We've entered it. And he's concerned about those who haven't. How do I know he's talking about God's Sabbath? Well, look what he says next. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way. Here he quotes Genesis chapter 2. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. He quotes Genesis chapter two and says, this is what I'm talking about. God's Sabbath rest that was in the Garden of Eden that sin has ruined. We who have put faith in Christ have now entered that rest. We've entered the Sabbath rest. Read on. Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, we can still do this, he says. For if Joshua had given him rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. He's holding out this opportunity to the Hebrews, Jews in his day. Today, if you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you can enter God's Sabbath rest, that same Sabbath rest that's pictured in Genesis chapter two. through Christ. Christ is what that was picturing. All of that Sabbath talk, all of the rest of the Sabbath, the joy of the Sabbath, the covenant of the Sabbath is all culminated in Christ. He's telling these Christians, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you've entered God's Sabbath rest. so that it remains, it says, a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did. God ceased working. When you believe in Christ, you cease working. You cease trying to work out your own salvation, and remember, the whole point of Christianity is, all other religions are do this and live. Christianity is, it's done, believe. You cease from your works. Let us therefore, it says, strive to enter that rest. Christianity, Jesus Christ is the Sabbath rest of God. And when a sinner comes to Christ, recognizes he can't save himself, he's separated from God, but Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior, who paid for our sin. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you enter that Sabbath rest. That was all being pictured throughout all these centuries. Another verse there in your sheet there. Colossians 2, 16 and 17. Later on then, as the apostles would write about this, they would warn Christians, because what would happen was the church was born, they're breaking away from Judaism slowly, but there were many of what they called Judaizers, who'd come along and say, well, Jesus is wonderful, he's the Messiah, but you gotta keep the Sabbath, you gotta be circumcised, you gotta eat the right kind of food, you gotta observe certain days, and Paul warned them. That's not a part of Christianity anymore. And he warns them, if you think you have to do those things, today there's many who teach us, Seventh-day Adventists are big on this, that Christ is, you're saved by faith in Christ alone, but you gotta keep some of the law. And Paul would warn them, in one verse there's on your sheet, Colossians 2, 16, 17. Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food, get that, food, or drink, or in respect to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath day. But notice what he says next. Things which are a mere shadow of what is to come. That's earth-shaking to a Jewish mind. Notice he says there, all those food restrictions were just a shadow of what's coming. All those special days, all those special festivals, all those new moon festivals in the Old Testament were just a shadow of what's coming. What's coming? Notice your text. But the substance belongs to Christ. All of that was pointing ahead to Jesus Christ. And when you come to Jesus Christ, Paul says, you stop keeping Sabbaths. You stop eating. You don't need to keep those dietary laws to be right with God. You don't need to observe Jewish festivals to be right with God. You don't need to observe certain days or certain customs. That's all fulfilled in Christ. And Paul says, I fear that they're telling you these things. Another verse, Galatians 1. He told you Galatians is the same thing. Galatians 4, 9 to 11. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again? Notice this, the weak and worthless elemental things. What weak and worthless things? To which you desire to be enslaved all over again. You observe days. You keep Sabbaths. You keep the Jewish festivals. You keep the Jewish holidays, thinking I have to do this, be right with God. Paul says, I worry about you. That's all done with. That's all the old way. Christ has fulfilled all of that. He says, you observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you. Perhaps I've labored in vain. Paul preached to them. All of that Old Testament law is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. If you're in Christ, you've fulfilled the law in him. And in the New Testament, we find this phenomenon. I just covered this in my Sunday school class in John. All four gospels make a point of telling us that when Jesus rose from the dead, it was on Sunday. what they called the first day of the week. And you would think if the Jewish Sabbath was to be reigned forever, you'd think Jesus would have rose on a Saturday, wouldn't you? He was crucified on a Friday before the Sabbath. He was raised on Sunday after the Sabbath. They announced that the resurrection, a new age has begun. The Sabbath now is converted or changed. Now, I'll be clear what I'm saying here. Sunday is not the Sabbath. The Sabbath is fulfilled. It's completed in Christ. We don't keep Sabbath anymore. Jesus is our Sabbath rest. He fulfilled all of that. In him, we are perfectly lawbreakers. Jesus rose on Sunday. He appeared to the women on Sunday. He appeared to the 10 apostles on Sunday. A week later, he appeared to the 11 apostles on a Sunday. Jesus rose back into heaven on a Sunday. Pentecost was on a Sunday. I don't know this. I'm only guessing. I wonder if the second coming is gonna be on a Sunday. I don't know. But because of all of this, the New Testament church didn't miss the significance of that. And now their most important day of the week to them became Sunday. Some verses to back that up. Acts 20, verse three, verse seven. Paul says, on the first day of the week when we were gathered together, they held their church services from that point on, on Sunday, not Saturday, Sunday. Sunday was the day that the church met. First Corinthians 16.21, 16.2, I'm sorry. Paul says, on the first day of every week, that's Sunday, each one of you is to put aside and say, in other words, They're raising an offering for the famine back in Jerusalem. Paul says, when you meet together on Sunday for church, bring your offering and collect it on Sunday like we do here. The early church began very early on meeting on Sundays. And because of Revelation chapter, yeah. John says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, which is Sunday. We call Sunday today, not the Sabbath. We don't keep Sabbath on a Sunday. Sabbath is fulfilled. the Lord's Day. Every time you meet on a Sunday morning for church, you're celebrating the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday. That's what it's all about. The Sabbath has been converted, if you will, changed into the Christian Lord's Day. But the day for Christian worship in honor of their Lord was Sunday. From that point on, for the next 2,000 years, church has met on Sunday. There are still Christians that think you've got to keep the Sabbath. They are sadly wrong. And also Christians will say that. Or they'll say Sunday is now the Sabbath. Sunday is not the Sabbath. The Sabbath has been fulfilled in Christ. The Old Testament law is fulfilled in Him. We don't keep the law to be right with God. We put our faith in Jesus Christ to be right with God. Because we who now who are Christian, we who have put our faith in Jesus Christ, we've entered that rest. You know that, don't you? If you're a Christian, you know that. The rest that comes. from knowing Christ. I love that picture in Pilgrim's Progress, the great burden on his back. When he stares at the cross, that burden falls into an empty tomb, never to be seen again. You lay down your burden. You are now right with God. Your guilt is gone. Your sin penalty is gone. Your future is secured. You're not going to hell. You're right with God. That burden is laid aside. You have rest, Dean. We have that peace. Peace. Peace that passes understanding, Philippians chapter 4. Exactly right. A peace the world can't know. Sadly. If you could bottle that, you'd make a billion dollars overnight. The world longs for any kind of peace, for some reason to have hope. They don't have any of that. We do, because of Christ. So you have all this, the Sabbath, all through all these stages, but there's one more stage, of course, and you know this. The Sabbath consummated. Remember I said to you, way back in the garden, God established the Sabbath, the Sabbath rest. Our sin ruined it. God codified it in nation of Israel to keep a Saturday Sabbath, and they did. Jesus came along and corrected all the Pharisees' errors. Then Jesus himself became our Sabbath rest. New Testament tells us to enter that rest, to put our faith in Jesus Christ. But the day is coming where we're gonna see this again. I got on your sheet here, just two verses. And you know these well, Revelation chapter 21. This is after Jesus returns. This is after the millennium. This is after the great white throne judgment. By the way, did you notice that the Great White Throne judgment says heaven and earth fled away from him who sits on the throne? God is going to create again in Genesis 21. I saw a new heaven and a new earth. Now there's not debate. Is it a renovated earth? I think it's new. It says new. God's going to create once again and recreate what was ruined by our sin. God's going to create again. In other words, it's going to start all over again. But this time it's way better than anything Adam and Eve knew. I've got it on this sheet, Revelation 21, verse one through four. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. There's no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, note these two words, coming down. Why coming down? You could almost paraphrase coming back down. In Genesis two, God was in perfect fellowship with his people with his creation on earth. He was there with them. When they sinned, God left. God left the garden. God left our presence. But on a new heaven, a new earth, when sin is done away with, Satan and all evil is burning in hell, it's all fixed. God himself comes down from where he was. And notice what it says next. There are no longer any coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle or the tent of God is among men. He will dwell among them. They shall be his people. God himself will be among them. And of course, the result, he'll wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away. Eden is restored. There was no crying or pain or death or mourning in Eden. God himself comes back to the earth. He's just remained. But now he dwells, look how many times it says there, he's with them, he's among them, they're his people, he's their God, just like it was in Genesis chapter two. And that's all because of what Jesus did on the cross. And one more verse, the very next chapter, the Bible ends with this picture, Revelation 22. The Bible starts this way, the Bible ends this way. Then he showed me a river of the water of life. Remember in Eden, there was those four rivers? clear as crystal coming from the throne of God of the land. That river was flowing out of Eden where God was. Here he sees in this new heaven, new earth where God's throne is, there's this beautiful, pure river flowing out from underneath it. But notice what he says is there. Bearing 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit, I'm sorry, in the middle of the street, on either side of the river was the tree of life. We haven't seen that since Genesis chapter three. Now it's back. The tree of life is back. It's like in Eden. Healing its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it, and his bondservants will serve him, and here's the five most greatest verses in scripture, and they will see his face, and his name will be on their forehead. That means intimacy. Not only are they gonna be there with God and the lamb, they're gonna be intimate with him. Friends, up close and personal with the holy God himself and his son, the lamb. In this new heaven and new earth, they'll see his face and name on their foreheads. There will no longer be any night. They will not have need of the light of the lantern or light of the sun because the Lord God will illumine them and they will reign forever and ever. Eden restored, but a whole lot better than what they even knew in Eden. That's God's plan for the ages. History will end as it began, with God in perfect, intimate, face-to-face fellowship with his creatures, whom he loves, they love him, sin is gone. The Sabbath rest of the Garden of Eden is fulfilled in Christ for all eternity. I love that verse, Ephesians 2, I think it's verse 7. It says, for the ages to come, he will show the riches of his kindness the riches of his grace and kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For the rest of eternity, God's gonna omnipotently with all of the riches he has, just dump his kindness on his people for the rest of eternity in Christ. It's all about Christ. Christ brings all this about. Right now, if you're in Christ, you've entered God's rest and there's more coming. But right now, if you're in Christ, you've laid down that burden of sin. You no longer need to work your way into heaven. It's been paid for you. You no longer need to wonder, am I right with God? If you're in Christ, you're right with God. You don't need to wonder, does God accept me? Does God love me? I get these arid thoughts sometimes. God, you must be sick of me by now. He's not sick of me, because I'm in Christ. You are as accepted as Jesus Christ is. You smell like him. You look like him. You're clothed with him. That's rest, but there's a whole lot more coming to this rest. It's a beautiful thought. This all works all through the scripture. Peace with God, but that's only for the Christian. The one who does not put their faith in Jesus Christ will never know this rest here. As you know, this world is filled with turmoil. Why do you think they drink so much, and do drugs, and all the crazy, mad rush for entertainment, and get their mind off their life? Because their lives are terrible. There's no rest now. There's no peace in the world. I always think of that picture in Isaiah, that the wicked are like a troubled sea which cannot rest. You understand the ocean, the waves come in one after another, one after another. They just can't rest. The Christian knows rest. The Christian knows peace. And it's only going to get better. Let's close in prayer. Father, how we love your word, because oh, it tells us about you and about your son. It tells us not only what you did, but what you're going to do. And Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is truly the fulfillment of all the peace and joy of Eden. He is our Sabbath rest. He is the fulfillment of all the law. He paid it all. And Father, we know that in him now, we keep Sabbath. In him now, we keep the law. In him, we are perfect before you. We've done it all, not because we have, because he has. Lord, I thank you for the joy. We thank you for the joy, the privilege, what it is to be a Christian. To know that our sins are gone, Lord. That worry, that burden is forever gone, Lord. Even though our bodies are getting old and we get sick sometimes, Lord, our souls have been saved. Our guilt is gone. We are right before you. We no longer have to try to earn our way or any such thing. We just have to rest and relax in Christ. Oh, Lord, thank you for giving us his peace, his rest. And Lord, we know that the half has not yet been told. There is so much more coming and we will one day, With all the redeemed on that new heaven, new earth, in your presence, with the presence of the Lamb, rejoice in fellowship and just share in love and joy and peace. Lord, it sounds so good to be true, but because your word says it, we know it's true. So Lord, help us to take courage from these things as we live in this dark world to remember these things. Lord, may they bring a joy to our soul and help us to endure living in this world, knowing what's coming. But we thank you for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who is our peace, who reconciled all things to himself through the death of his cross. Lord, thank you for this. We praise our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for doing this for us. And all this we ask and say in Jesus' name, amen.