When someone is productive, they can afford to take a day off. The key is to live within one’s means. Staying out of debt enables one to be able to relax and take time off without worrying about the future. In America, we have become consumer driven rather than productive. People work to consume. They do not work to be productive and have an abundance. When a husband and a wife go off to work, they generally end up deep in debt. With the wife at home, it forces the family to have to economize and live within what is being provided. Man cannot, however, work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, without breaking down. He is not a machine. He needs a day off. The wicked, however, do not know how to rest as Isaiah 57:20-21 declares, "But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. 21There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." If this is the case of the wicked, just the opposite applies to the saints of God.
Application
To properly understand the Bible, we need to use what is known as applied theology.
Exodus 23:10-12 reads, "And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: 11But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. 12Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed." When reading these verses, it should be apparent that the pattern is work and then rest. In the New Testament, because the Lord’s Day is the first day of the week, the pattern is reversed, rest and work. Either way work and rest are involved. This is a case law of the fourth commandment to Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.
Someone who will not work is just as guilty of breaking the Sabbath as those who labor unnecessarily on the Lord’s Day. In this portion of scripture, we have the introduction of the sabbatical year. The land was to rest every seventh year. There was also the introduction of the Jubilee year. This was to be the year after the seventh year times seven (49 years) or the fiftieth year. Leviticus 25:8-13 says about this year of release, "And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 9Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 11A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. 12For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. 13In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession." It is a time of rest from labor and release from debt bondage.
How could the Israelites afford to take a whole year off from working the land? Leviticus 25:18-22 explains this phenomenon, "Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. 19And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. 20And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: 21Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. 22And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store." If they obeyed the Lord, the Lord would give them such an increase that they could afford to take time off from their labors. If we obey the Lord and are diligent in our callings, then the Lord will ensure that we can take a day off each week. By taking a day off, we are foregoing the income that we could have earned. Obedience to the Lord will make this up to us through His provision.
Were the Israelites obedient in regard to the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee year? Daniel 9:2 reads, "In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem." Jeremiah had prophesied that this was going to happen but obviously his word was not heeded. 2 Chronicles 36:21 says, "To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years." God punished the Israelites for their disobedience to His sabbatical year provision. They went into captivity for seventy years. They disregarded the sabbatical years for 490 years.
Conclusion
We are to walk in covenant with God. The fourth point of the covenant model is sanctions. Blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. God expects us to take a weekly sabbatical. Failure here results in cursing. For the people of God, He will abundantly supply enough that we have to only work six days and not seven. It is down payment on eternity.
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