Message Nine

The Intrinsic Significance
of Keeping the Sabbath and of Fasting

Scripture Reading: Isa. 55:1; 56:2;
57:15, 20-21; 58:8-14; 66:1-2

Isa. 55:1  Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, / And you who have no money; / Come, buy and eat; / Yes, come, buy wine and milk / Without money and without price.

Isa. 56:2  Blessed is the man who does this, / And the son of man who takes hold of it, / Who keeps the Sabbath so as not to profane it / And keeps his hand from doing any evil.

Isa. 57:15  For thus says the high and exalted One, / Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: / I will dwell in the high and holy place, / And with the contrite and lowly of spirit, / To revive the spirit of the lowly / And to revive the heart of the contrite.

Isa. 57:20-21  But the wicked are like the tossed sea, / For it cannot be calm, / And its waters toss up mire and mud. ²¹There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.

Isa. 58:8-14  Then your light will break forth like the dawn, / And your recovery will speedily spring forth. / And your righteousness will go before you; / The glory of Jehovah will guard you from behind. ⁹Then you will call, and Jehovah will answer; / You will cry out, and He will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from your midst, / The pointing of the finger and the speaking of wickedness, ¹⁰And if you draw out your soul to the hungry / And satisfy the desires of the afflicted; / Then your light will rise in the darkness, / And your gloom will be like midday; ¹¹And Jehovah will guide you continually, / And satisfy your soul in the dry times, / And strengthen your bones; / And you will be like a watered garden, / And like a spring of water, / Whose waters do not deceive. ¹²And those who are of you will rebuild the ancient ruins; / You will raise up the foundations of generation upon generation; / And you will be called the repairer of the breach, / The restorer of the paths in which to dwell. ¹³If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, / From doing whatever you please on My holy day, / And call the Sabbath a delight, / That which is holy to Jehovah honorable, / And honor it, not doing your own ways, / Nor finding your own pleasure and speaking idle words; ¹⁴Then you will have delight in Jehovah; / And I will cause you to ride upon the heights of the earth, / And I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father; / For the mouth of Jehovah has spoken.

Isa. 66:1-2  Thus says Jehovah, / Heaven is My throne, / And the earth the footstool for My feet. / Where then is the house that you will build for Me, / And where is the place of My rest? ²For all these things My hand has made, / And so all these things have come into being, declares Jehovah. / But to this kind of man will I look, to him who is poor / And of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.

I. The real meaning of keeping the Sabbath is that we cease from our doing, stop our work, get ourselves “fired,” and enjoy what the Lord has done for us, drinking of Him, the consummated Spirit, as the waters—Isa. 56:2; 12:3; 55:1:

Isa. 56:2  Blessed is the man who does this, / And the son of man who takes hold of it, / Who keeps the Sabbath so as not to profane it / And keeps his hand from doing any evil.

Isa. 12:3  Therefore you will draw water with rejoicing / From the springs of salvation,

Isa. 55:1  Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, / And you who have no money; / Come, buy and eat; / Yes, come, buy wine and milk / Without money and without price.

A. Keeping the Sabbath in this way is to be terminated and replaced by Christ so that we may enter into Him and rest in Him for eternity.

B. To believe in the Lord Jesus is to keep the Sabbath; on the day we were saved, we were “fired” and replaced with Christ.

C. “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20)—this is the keeping of the Sabbath.

Gal. 2:20  I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

D. The entire Christian life should be such a Sabbath—Heb. 4:9, footnote 1, Recovery Version.

Heb. 4:9  So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

Heb. 4:9, note 1:

This Sabbath rest is Christ as our rest, typified by the good land of Canaan (Deut. 12:9; Heb. 4:8). Christ is rest to the saints in three stages: (1) in the church age, as the heavenly Christ, the One who rests from His work and sits on the right hand of God in the heavens, He is the rest to us in our spirit (Matt. 11:28-29); (2) in the millennial kingdom, after Satan is removed from this earth (Rev. 20:1-3), Christ with the kingdom will be the rest in a fuller way to the overcoming saints, who will be His co-kings (Rev. 20:4, 6), sharing and enjoying His rest; (3) in the new heaven and new earth, after all the enemies, including death, the last enemy, have been made subject to Him (1 Cor. 15:24-27), Christ, as the all-conquering One, will be the rest in the fullest way to all God’s redeemed for eternity. But the Sabbath rest mentioned here and typified by the rest of the good land of Canaan covers only the first two stages of Christ’s being our rest; it does not include the third stage. The rest in the first two stages is a prize to His diligent seekers, who not only are redeemed but also have enjoyed Him in a full way, thus becoming the overcomers; whereas the rest in the third stage is not a prize but the full portion allotted to all the redeemed ones. Therefore, in the first two stages, and especially in the second, Christ as our rest is the Sabbath rest mentioned here, the rest that remains for us to seek after and enter into diligently. It is in the second stage of His being our rest that Christ will take possession of the whole earth as His inheritance (Psa. 2:8; Heb. 2:5-6), making it His kingdom for a thousand years (Rev. 11:15). All His overcoming followers who seek and enjoy Him as their rest in the first stage will participate in His reign in the millennium (Rev. 20:4, 6; 2 Tim. 2:12). Moreover, they will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5; Psa. 37:11), some having authority over ten cities, some over five (Luke 19:17, 19), and will partake of the joy of their Lord (Matt. 25:21, 23). That will be the kingdom rest, which is typified by the rest of entering into the good land of Canaan. The rest of the good land was the goal of all the children of Israel, who had been redeemed and delivered from Egypt; likewise, the rest of the coming kingdom is the goal of the New Testament believers, who have been redeemed and saved from the world. We are now all on the way toward this goal.

God’s full salvation, which He intended for the children of Israel, included redemption through the passover lamb, the exodus from Egypt, feeding on the heavenly manna, having their thirst quenched by the living water from the cleft rock, and partaking of the good land of Canaan. All the children of Israel shared in the passover lamb, the heavenly manna, and the living water, but only Joshua and Caleb, out of those who shared the exodus from Egypt, entered into the good land and partook of it; all the rest fell in the wilderness (Num. 14:30; 1 Cor. 10:1-11). Though all were redeemed, only the two overcomers, Joshua and Caleb, received the prize of the good land.

The passover lamb, the heavenly manna, the living water, and the good land of Canaan are all types of different aspects of Christ. According to what is depicted by the experiences of the children of Israel, not all believers who have been redeemed through Christ will partake of Christ as a prize, as their rest, their satisfaction, in both the church age and the coming kingdom; only those who, after being redeemed, seek Christ diligently will partake of Him in such a way. This is why the apostle Paul, though fully redeemed, was still pursuing toward the goal that he might gain Christ as the prize (Phil. 3:10-14). In Phil. 3 Paul told us that he had been in Judaism but that for Christ’s sake he had given it up (Phil. 3:4-9). Here, in this book, the writer held the same concept, encouraging the Hebrew believers to forsake Judaism and press toward Christ so that they would not miss the prize.

E. This extended Sabbath becomes a feast in which we cease from our doing and are replaced with Christ.

F. The more we realize that it is no longer we who live but that it is Christ who lives in us, the more we drink of the waters.

G. On the seventh day, the Sabbath, God rested because He had finished His work and was satisfied; God’s glory was manifested because man had His image, and His authority was about to be exercised for the subduing of His enemy, Satan; as long as man expresses God and deals with God’s enemy, God can rest—Gen. 1:26, 31; 2:2-3; Rom. 5:17, 21; 16:20:

Gen. 1:26  And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

Gen. 1:31  And God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Gen. 2:2-3  And on the seventh day God finished His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. ³And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Rom. 5:17  For if, by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

Rom. 5:21  In order that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom. 16:20  Now the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

1. God’s seventh day, the Sabbath, was man’s first day; God had prepared everything for man’s enjoyment.

2. After man was created, he did not join in God’s work; he entered into God’s rest; man was created not to work but to be satisfied with God and rest with God.

H. “Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light”—Matt. 11:28-30:

Matt. 11:28-30  Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

1. Toil refers not only to the toil of striving to keep the commandments of the law and religious regulations but also to the toil of struggling to be successful in any work; whoever toils thus is always heavily burdened.

2. Rest refers not only to being set free from the toil and burden under the law or religion or under any work or responsibility, but also to perfect peace and full satisfaction.

3. To take the Lord’s yoke is to take the will of the Father; it is not to be regulated or controlled by any obligation of the law or religion or to be enslaved by any work, but to be constrained by the will of the Father:

a. The Lord lived such a life, caring for nothing but the will of His Father—John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38.

John 4:34  Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.

John 5:30  I can do nothing from Myself; as I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.

John 6:38  For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.

b. He submitted Himself fully to the Father’s will (Matt. 26:39, 42); hence, He asks us to learn from Him.

Matt. 26:39  And going forward a little, He fell on His face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.

Matt. 26:42  Again, going away a second time, He prayed, saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.

4. To be meek, or gentle, means not to resist opposition, and to be lowly means not to have self-esteem:

a. Throughout all the opposition the Lord was meek, and throughout all the rejection He was lowly in heart.

b. He submitted Himself fully to the will of His Father, not wanting to do anything for Himself or expecting to gain something for Himself.

c. Hence, regardless of the situation He had rest in His heart; He was fully satisfied with the Father’s will.

5. The rest that we find by taking the Lord’s yoke and learning from Him is for our souls; it is an inward rest and is not anything merely outward in nature.

6. The Lord’s yoke is the Father’s will, and His burden is the work of carrying out the Father’s will; such a yoke is easy, not bitter, and such a burden is light, not heavy.

7. His yoke being easy means that His yoke, the Father’s will, is good, kind, mild, gentle, pleasant—in contrast to hard, harsh, sharp, bitter.

II. The real meaning of fasting is to stop eating all things other than the Lord Jesus and to not have a taste for anything other than Him:

A. We need to fast, to cease from all other kinds of eating, to stop the taste for all other foods, and to eat Jesus as the bread of life embodied in His word—John 6:48, 51, 63, 68.

John 6:48  I am the bread of life.

John 6:51  I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; And the bread which I will give is My flesh, given for the life of the world.

John 6:63  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

John 6:68  Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life,

B. The evil condition of the wicked is that they do not come to the Lord to eat and enjoy the Lord—Isa. 57:20-21; cf. 55:1-2, 6-7:

Isa. 57:20-21  But the wicked are like the tossed sea, / For it cannot be calm, / And its waters toss up mire and mud. ²¹There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.

Isa. 55:1-2  Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, / And you who have no money; / Come, buy and eat; / Yes, come, buy wine and milk / Without money and without price. ²Why do you spend money for what is not bread, / And the result of your labor for what does not satisfy? / Hear Me attentively, and eat what is good, / And let your soul delight itself in fatness.

Isa. 55:6-7  Seek Jehovah while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near. ⁷Let the wicked forsake his way, / And the evildoer, his thoughts; / And let him return to Jehovah, and He will have compassion on him; / And to our God, for He will pardon abundantly.

1. They do many things, but they do not come to contact the Lord, to take Him, to receive Him, to taste Him, and to enjoy Him.

2. In the sight of God, nothing is more evil than this—Jer. 2:13.

Jer. 2:13  For My people have committed two evils: / They have forsaken Me, / The fountain of living waters, / To hew out for themselves cisterns, / Broken cisterns, / Which hold no water.

3. The wicked ones do many things, but they cannot have peace, because they do not contact the Lord, rest in Him, and remain in His presence—Isa. 57:20-21.

Isa. 57:20-21  But the wicked are like the tossed sea, / For it cannot be calm, / And its waters toss up mire and mud. ²¹There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.

4. We need to learn at every moment and during every action to touch, taste, eat, and enjoy the Lord.

5. We should not only touch the Lord but also be touched by Him.

6. The way to have a real revival is to contact the Lord with a contrite and humble spirit—v. 15; 66:1-2.

Isa. 57:15  For thus says the high and exalted One, / Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: / I will dwell in the high and holy place, / And with the contrite and lowly of spirit, / To revive the spirit of the lowly / And to revive the heart of the contrite.

Isa. 66:1-2  Thus says Jehovah, / Heaven is My throne, / And the earth the footstool for My feet. / Where then is the house that you will build for Me, / And where is the place of My rest? ²For all these things My hand has made, / And so all these things have come into being, declares Jehovah. / But to this kind of man will I look, to him who is poor / And of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.

C. When we fast by ceasing from the taste for anything other than Christ, we have an appetite only for Christ, and we do not eat anything other than Christ.

D. God intends to reconstitute His people by changing their diet; His aim is to eliminate every trace of our Egyptian, worldly, constitution in order to make our constitution purely of Christ—Exo. 16:3-4, 14-36; John 6:32-35, 48-51, 57, 63:

Exo. 16:3-4  And the children of Israel said to them, If only we had died by the hand of Jehovah in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole congregation with hunger. ⁴Then Jehovah said to Moses, I will now rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My law.

Exo. 16:14-36  And when the layer of dew lifted, there upon the surface of the wilderness were fine round flakes, fine as the frost on the earth. ¹⁵And when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, It is the bread which Jehovah has given you to eat. ¹⁶This is what Jehovah has commanded, Gather of it, each one according to his eating; you shall take an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, each one for those who are in his tent. ¹⁷And the children of Israel did so; and some gathered much, and some little. ¹⁸And when they measured it with an omer, he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no lack; each of them gathered according to his eating. ¹⁹And Moses said to them, Let no man leave any of it until the morning. ²⁰But they did not listen to Moses, and some men left part of it until the morning; and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was indignant with them. ²¹And they gathered it morning by morning, each one according to his eating; and when the sun became hot, it melted. ²²And on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one; and all the leaders of the assembly came and told Moses. ²³And he said to them, This is what Jehovah has spoken, Tomorrow is a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to Jehovah. Bake what you will bake, and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside for yourselves to be kept until the morning. ²⁴And they put it aside until the morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor was there any worm in it. ²⁵And Moses said, Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to Jehovah; today you will not find it in the field. ²⁶Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath; on it there will be none. ²⁷And on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. ²⁸And Jehovah said to Moses, How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? ²⁹See, Jehovah has given you the Sabbath, therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Let each of you stay in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. ³⁰So the people rested on the seventh day. ³¹And the house of Israel called its name manna, and it was like coriander seed, white; and its taste was like wafers made with honey. ³²And Moses said, This is what Jehovah has commanded, Let an omerful of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out from the land of Egypt. ³³And Moses said to Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omerful of manna in it, and place it before Jehovah, to be kept throughout your generations. ³⁴As Jehovah commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. ³⁵And the children of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came to inhabitable land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. ³⁶Now an omer is a tenth of an ephah.

John 6:32-35  Jesus therefore said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread out of heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. ³³For the bread of God is He who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. ³⁴They said therefore to Him, Lord, give us this bread always. ³⁵Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger, and he who believes into Me shall by no means ever thirst.

John 6:48  I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; And the bread which I will give is My flesh, given for the life of the world.

John 6:57  As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.

John 6:63  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

1. Whatever we desire, hunger, and thirst after is the diet according to which our being has been constituted; whatever satisfies, strengthens, and sustains us is our food; the unique food we take for our sustenance, strength, and satisfaction must be Christ—Num. 11:4-6.

Num. 11:4-6  And the mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly; and the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who shall give us meat to eat? ⁵We remember the fish which we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic; ⁶But now our appetite has gone; there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.

2. The Lord desires to take away the desire and hunger for anything other than Christ; Christ as the heavenly manna nourishes us, heals us, and eliminates the negative things in us to reconstitute us with Himself.

3. Only those who are reconstituted with Christ by eating Him become the dwelling place of God; may the Lord change our diet so that we may be reconstituted with Christ and become God’s dwelling place.

III. Isaiah 58 describes the hypocrisy of the house of Jacob and Jehovah’s instruction to them; they fasted outwardly, but they did many things in pursuit of their own interests; they did not rest in God or take Him as their nourishment and life supply:

A. Verses 8 and 9a say that if we fast in the way of contacting the Lord, taking Him as our nourishment and sustaining power, our light will break forth like the dawn: “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, / And your recovery will speedily spring forth. / And your righteousness will go before you; / The glory of Jehovah will guard you from behind. / Then you will call, and Jehovah will answer; / You will cry out, and He will say, Here I am.”

B. Verse 9b says that if we fast in the proper way, we will remove the yoke from our midst, the pointing of the finger and the speaking of wickedness.

Isa. 58:9b  If you remove the yoke from your midst, / The pointing of the finger and the speaking of wickedness,

C. Verse 10a goes on to say that we will also draw out our soul to the hungry and satisfy the desires of the afflicted; this is to be merciful to others and to sympathize with them.

Isa. 58:10a  And if you draw out your soul to the hungry / And satisfy the desires of the afflicted;

D. Verses 10b through 12 say that those who fast in the right way will be full of light and life, they will be useful, and they will enable others to go on: “Then your light will rise in the darkness, / And your gloom will be like midday; / And Jehovah will guide you continually, / And satisfy your soul in the dry times, / And strengthen your bones; / And you will be like a watered garden, / And like a spring of water, / Whose waters do not deceive. / And those who are of you will rebuild the ancient ruins; / You will raise up the foundations of generation upon generation; / And you will be called the repairer of the breach, / The restorer of the paths in which to dwell.”

E. In verse 13 Jehovah instructs the house of Jacob not to do whatever they please on His holy day; they were to call the Sabbath a delight and honor it, not doing their own ways, nor finding their own pleasure and speaking idle words; they were to keep the Sabbath by enjoying God, having been fired and replaced by Him.

Isa. 58:13  If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, / From doing whatever you please on My holy day, / And call the Sabbath a delight, / That which is holy to Jehovah honorable, / And honor it, not doing your own ways, / Nor finding your own pleasure and speaking idle words;

F. Verse 14 says that if they honor the Sabbath, they will have delight in Jehovah, and He will cause them to ride upon the heights of the earth, and He will feed them with the inheritance of Jacob their father.

Isa. 58:14  Then you will have delight in Jehovah; / And I will cause you to ride upon the heights of the earth, / And I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father; / For the mouth of Jehovah has spoken.

IV. God wants us to learn one lesson—to stop our doing, taking Christ as our replacement, and to keep away from the taste of anything other than Christ:

A. We should be replaced by Christ and enjoy God continually; this is the purpose for which Christ died for us and was resurrected for us.

B. He is our Sabbath and our food; now we can rest in Him, feed on Him, and have Him as our replacement in every way and in everything.

C. In the New Jerusalem for eternity, we will have a life of resting and fasting:

1. Having been fully “fired,” we will not work but will be at rest; this will be the situation of everyone in the New Jerusalem—Rev. 21:2; Isa. 66:12.

Rev. 21:2  And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Isa. 66:12  For thus says Jehovah, / I now am extending to her / Peace like a river, / And the glory of the nations / Like an overflowing stream; / And you will nurse, you will be carried on the hip, / And you will be bounced on the knees.

2. Our unique food will be Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, as the tree of life—Rev. 22:1-2.

Rev. 22:1-2  And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street. ²And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

D. By resting and fasting we can partake of all that the processed Christ has accomplished for us; in totality, what He is and has accomplished is just the divine water, which is the consummated Spirit for our enjoyment—Isa. 55:1; 1 Cor. 12:13.

Isa. 55:1  Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, / And you who have no money; / Come, buy and eat; / Yes, come, buy wine and milk / Without money and without price.

1 Cor. 12:13  For also in one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.

E. When we heard the gospel and received the Lord Jesus, we immediately began to keep the Sabbath and to fast; now we should be “fired” again and replaced by Christ more and more, resting in Him and fasting from every taste other than Him.

F. According to the divine revelation in the Scriptures, we all need to learn to keep the Sabbath and to fast.