Shabbath--the seventh, seventh
(day); seventh (month); seventh (year); restoration; restitution; return to a
former state; at-one-ment; atonement; completion; perfection; wholeness;
repose; rest. The seventh day of the week. Under the old Jewish law, no
one was allowed to do any work on that day (Exod. 20:811).
The
Shabbath is the consciousness that we have fulfilled the divine law in both
thought and act.
The
Shabbath of the Lord has nothing to do with any day of the week. יהוה (Yahweh)
did not make days and weeks, nor has He darkened His clear concepts of Truth by
the time element. Time is an invention of the human.
The Shabbath
is a very certain, definite thing. It is a state of mind that man enters or
acquires when he goes into the silence of his own soul, into the realm of
Spirit. There he finds true rest and peace. The seventh day means the seventh
or perfect stage of one's spiritual unfoldment. Man had become so lost in the
darkness of sense consciousness that he could not save himself, so a Savior
came. When man lays hold of the indwelling Christ, the Savior, he is raised out
of the Adam consciousness into the Christ consciousness. He then enters the
seventh stage of his unfoldment, where he finds rest and peace. The Shabbath
can be enjoyed at any hour. Man shows his ignorance and limits his happiness by
confining the Shabbath to any one of the days of the week. He should learn to
read the Bible in the spirit, and pay less attention to the letter of it.
The Shabbath as an institution
was established by man. יהוה (Yahweh) does not rest from His works every
seventh day, and there is no evidence that there ever has been a moment's
cessation in the activity of the universe. Those who stickle most for Shabbath
day observance are met on every hand by the evidence of perpetual activity on
the part of Him whom they claim to champion.
We are cited to the trees,
flowers, suns, and stars, as the work of יהוה (Yahweh); we are told that it is יהוה
(Yahweh) who sustains and governs, controls and directs, them in every minutia.
Yet trees, flowers, suns, and stars are active the first day and the seventh
day of the week just the same as on other days. Sacerdotalism has never yet
found that the operations of nature on Sunday are in any way different from its
operations on any other day of the week.
It would seem that if יהוה
(Yahweh) ordained a certain day for rest, and rested on that day Himself, He ought certainly
to have left some evidence of it in His creations; but He has not, that anybody
knows of. The fact is that Divine Mind rests in a perpetual Shabbath and that
which seems work is not work at all. When man becomes so at one with the
Father-Mind as to feel it consciously he also recognizes this eternal peace in
which all things are accomplished. He then knows that he is not subject to any
condition whatsoever, but is "lord of the Shabbath."
It is your privilege to be as
free as the birds, the trees, the flowers. "They toil not, neither do they
spin," but are always obedient to the divine instinct, and their every day
is a Shabbath. They stand in no fear of an angry God, though they build a nest,
spread a leaf, or open a petal on the first or on the seventh day. All days are
holy days to them. They live in the holy Omnipresence and do the will always of
Him who sent them. It is our duty to do likewise. That which is instinct in
them is in us conscious, loving obedience. When we have resolved to be
attentive to the voice of the Father and to do His will at any cost, we are
freed from the bondage of all man-made laws. What was a chain about our wrists,
or a yoke about our neck, in the form of some fear of transgressing the divine
law, slips away into the fathomless sea of nothingness and we sit on the shore
and praise the loving Goodness that we are nevermore to be frightened by an
accusing conscience or by the possibility of misunderstanding His law.
We are not to quarrel with our
brother over observance of the Shabbath. If he insists that the Lord should be
worshiped on the seventh day, let us joyfully join him on that day; and if he
holds that the first day is the holy day, let us again acquiesce. Not only do
we do God's service in praise, song, and thanksgiving on the seventh day and
the first day, but every day. In the true Shabbath our souls are turned upward
to יהוה (Yahweh) every moment, and we are ever
ready to acknowledge His holy presence
in our heart and life; we are ever praising the holy Omnipresence that burns
its lamp of love perpetually in
our heart and keeps the light of life before us on our way. This is the
observance of יהוה (Yahweh)'s holy day that the divinely wise soul a}ways
recognizes. The true church is the heaven within one, where one meets the
Father face to face, where one goes to Him at will, in closest fellowship.
On the other hand, the observance
of every seventh day as a day of rest, or Shabbath, has its source deep in the
constitution of things. Among nearly all peoples similar rest days have been
instituted, and history proves that Moses was not the originator of the system.
The observance of a weekly rest day is now very widely held to prove a natural
basis in the needs of man. The consistency with which such an institution has
been maintained for many centuries among Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and
some of the so-called pagan nations amply supports this view. It bas been found
by experience that one day of rest in seven is the right proportion. During the
French Revolution, when a ten-day period was substituted for the week, one
day's rest in ten was found insufficient.
"And on the seventh day יהוה
(Yahweh) finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day
from all his work which he had made. And יהוה (Yahweh) blessed the seventh day,
and hallowed it." This quotation from Genesis presents in concise words a
law that pervades the universe. According to some geologists the rock-ribbed
earth beneath our feet bears record of six great creative periods, with a
seventh in process of completion. Seven movements of the creative law are found
at the foundation of the world about us. The seven colors of the spectrum, the
seven principal tones of music, the seven senses of man (two not yet
universally used)--all point to these degrees or days of action and rest.
When man in his wisdom unites his
thought with Divine Mind, as did
יהוה בן
יהוה (Yahweh Ben Yahweh), he has power to use the same creative law that יהוה
(Yahweh) uses in bringing forth the universe. The seven elements of the body
are found everywhere, and through understanding that they are not fixed,
material things, but forms of thought, man gains entrance to a realm where he can speak words
that will give him the obedience of those elements, according to his power.
When you have gained power to
still the stormy, undisciplined thoughts in your own mind you can speak to the
winds and they will obey you. When you have arrested the scorching currents of
anger that burn up your body cells you can quench the fire in a burning
building. When you have ceased to drop into the weak, watery mental states
called discouragement, despondency, and fear, you can command the waves and
walk upon the waters, as did יהוה בן
יהוה (Yahweh Ben Yahweh).
Before man can rise into his
natural dominion, however, he must understand and realize that יהוה (Yahweh)'s
whole plan of creation is to bring forth the perfect man. This means that man
is the supreme thing in creation and that all laws are for his convenience. The
universal tendency of great men to manifest this inherent excellency proves
that it is natural. Most of them miss the mark by seeking to dominate other men
and nations before they have mastered themselves.
When men set up a law and make
its observance burdensome they are slaves of their own creation. The Jews had
become burdened with the observance of the letter of the Shabbath commandment,
and had a multitude of ridiculous prohibitions and formalities, from which יהוה בן יהוה (Yahweh Ben Yahweh) sought to
rescue them by His example of bold freedom and disregard of certain man-made
laws.
The Shabbath was instituted for
man, not man for the Shabbath. It is lawful to do good on the Shabbath, whether
it be preaching in a pulpit, healing the sick, or in any other way saving men
from ignorance and its results. Luther said of the Shabbath: "Keep it holy
for its use's sake both to body and soul. But if anywhere the day is made holy
for the mere day's sake, if anywhere any one sets up its observance upon a
Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on
it, to feast on it, to do anything that shall reprove this encroachment on the
Christian spirit and liberty."
To repeat, the
true Shabbath is not the observance of an outer day; the outer is but the
symbol. The true Shabbath is that state of mind in which we rest from outer
thought and doings, and give ourselves up to meditation or to the study of
things spiritual; it is when we enter into the stillness of our inner
consciousness, think about יהוה (Yahweh) and His law, and commune with Him.
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