Tag Archives: sabbath

August 28, 2022 · 1:14 pm

Secrets of the Sabbath, Part Two

In Part One, we saw what man’s conception of the Sabbath is not. Reviewing, the sabbath commandment is not made for a righteous man (I Timothy 1: 8-9). This goes for the other nine commandments called the Law. [Much more on this in my latest book, The 11th Commandment. Yours free. See end of article for ordering info.]

The sabbath is not a hoop to jump through to prove that we are righteous before God. Trying to keep the sabbath day holy is not the way for us to become righteous in God’s eyes.

Yet, an awakening Christian keeps on trying to keep the sabbath, always looking over their shoulder at the guilty conscience lurking close by, never knowing for sure if they have sinned or not. “Will it be a sin if I don’t go to the sabbath meeting?” many have wondered.

But God sees all; He sees the trepidations, but He is weary and tired of the lack of faith/belief. He sees those struggling in vain to obey the law that only His Spirit can keep.

He cries out to us through Isaiah: “Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.” Yahweh considers the sacrifices of “trying to keep the sabbath” of no profit. All the physical accoutrement that man uses in trying to keep the Law is an abomination in His sight (1:13-15).

As our High Priest, we thank Christ for obtaining for us a better covenant that has purged our “conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. 9: 9-14). No more recriminations, nor guilt, nor shame. No more guilty consciences, for He has wiped the slate clean. We are new spiritual creatures in Christ.

What the Sabbath Is

And with new clarity, we now see what the sabbath really is in God’s sight.

First, the sabbath, as we know it in this earthly dimension, is a shadow. This is mankind’s conception of the sabbath. It is not the reality. It is a physical metaphor for a spiritual reality. The sabbath day was instituted under the Old Covenant, which is a physical representation to lead us to the spiritual reality.

The sabbath is a shadow. It has never been the real deal.  Shadows are made from a lack of light.  Shadows are in the shape of things or people, but they are not the real thing; they are not a part of reality. Shadows merely imitate reality; they simulate what is real; they intimate that which is true; they suggest obscurely as to what or who made their image possible. But they are not the real thing.

The Spirit of truth tells us that the sabbath is a shadow. After believing our cross and resurrection experience with Christ, the Spirit says to us, “Let no man therefore judge you… in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come…” (Col. 2:11-17). They will judge you concerning the feasts of Yahweh and for using or not using the lunar calendar. And they will judge you for keeping or not keeping the seventh day sabbath (the way they would have you keep it). Pay them no mind. The sabbath is a shadow. [See more about this here: Feasts, New Moons, Sabbaths–Mere Shadows of Christ in Us | Immortality Road (wordpress.com)].

So, What Then is the Real Sabbath?

The real sabbath is Yahweh’s sabbath. “Sabbath” means “rest.” So, the true sabbath is Yahweh’s rest. We first see His rest in Genesis 2:1-3. “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.”

And He has promised us that we can enter into His sabbath rest, too. However, we must not do what the children of Israel did. They could not enter into His sabbath rest because of their unbelief. Christ appeared several times to them, led them, performed many miracles, and yet their hard heart of unbelief prevented them from joining God in His rest (Heb. 4:1-2).

We keep Yahweh’s Sabbath when we believe the gospel good news that Christ’s sacrifice has washed away our sins. Gone. And that only happens when our old self dies with Christ, is buried with Christ, and is resurrected with Christ (Romans 6:1-12). When we believe that, then “there remains therefore a rest [“a keeping of the sabbath,” a sabbatismos in the Greek] for the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:9-10).

Yahweh entered into His sabbath rest after completing His work. We enter into Yahweh’s “rest” when we “cease from our own works, as God did from His” (v. 10). We “cease from our own works” when we complete the cross, tomb, and resurrection experience IN OUR OWN HEARTS. That was our old sinful selves up there on that cross. Christ took our sin upon himself. And when He died, we died. “And he that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom. 6:7).

Many professing Christians believe that Christ died, was buried, and was raised from the dead. But in order to be like Him, we have to do what He did. And that is to “present our bodies a living sacrifice.” We “are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12).

We cease from our own works when it is “no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me.” We must let it go and surrender to the cross experience. That is the key. And that is the message to both Non-Christians and Christians. The cross experience is where the old self ends and where Christ’s Spirit begins to reign in our hearts. Ceasing from the actions of self and then entering into the dimension of His rest and peace—this is walking with Christ. This is doing His will. This is holding His hand and walking through this corrupted earth. This is us crying to Him, asking Him to lead and guide us and speak through our vessels the Word of life. This is entering into His Sabbath Rest. This is one of His precious secrets. Embrace it. Never let it go.      Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[To further study this, I recommend my second book The Unveiling of the Sons of God, pp. 1-20. It is free with free shipping to all seekers of the truth. Ordering info below.]

[Ordering My Free Books in Paperback]

I am now able to send you a copy of my books absolutely free with free shipping.  Please specify which one.

Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality explores the deeper meaning of our Savior’s Hebrew name Yahshua, which means Yahweh is the Savior.

The Unveiling of the Sons of God explains how the whole creation is waiting and longing for the manifestation (the unveiling) of the sons of God for these latter days. Christ will be totally formed in His elect as they will have grown and matured spiritually into His likeness and power.

The Royal Destiny of God’s Elect. It explores God’s vision for us, to be kings with Christ and how He will use us to reproduce His nature of Love.

My latest books are The Apostles’ Doctrine and The 11th Commandent. Their doctrine was Christ’s teachings. And the early church walked in those teachings. These books reveal just what they are and how to walk in them.

Send your request, specifying which one of my books you desire, to my email address:  wayneman5@hotmail.com 

Include your name and mailing address. For those outside the United States, or who may prefer a pdf copy of the last two books mentioned, please specify.  Also, you may read the first two books online at my website Immortality Road found here:   https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com

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February 22, 2014 · 6:39 pm

“Today, If You Will Hear His Voice”–The Time Portal to His Presence

An opening in time–a portal to enter into God’s presence, to be near Him, enough to hear His voice.

So, we ask again, What if God, earnestly desiring to commune with us, has provided a way for us to get into a spiritual place where He would speak audibly to us? What if we could get all of our spiritual ducks in a row and thereby position ourselves to enter His time portal so that we could literally have a conversation with the Creator? He did say that all things are possible to him that believes.

What if, among His many promises to us, there is the possibility that we could get very close to Him, that we could hear His voice and even share a meal together, as we see in Rev. 3.  What if He has already created a window of time that opens on a regular basis, a timeframe where, if we can believe it, He will meet us there, after we have met certain criteria that He has set for our holiness?

God has provided this time portal, and it swings open every seven days. It is called the Sabbath.  And we are commanded to “keep it holy.” But the true Sabbath is like an island surrounded by the treacherous waters of man’s traditions. Every sect in the earth has their own take as to which day is the Sabbath and how to “keep it holy.”

Keeping It Holy

First, there is nothing we can do that makes the Sabbath holy. We cannot sanctify it through anything that we do or don’t do. We must realize that the Sabbath already is holy. God has already set it apart and hallowed it (Ex. 20: 11).

God created it and sanctified it for man, as Christ said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The seventh day is not something to be served as if it were this holy thing that needs to be reverently observed–or else. The Sabbath is instead a 24 hour space in time that occurs every seven days in which the Great Spirit Creator makes His presence known with more power and clarity to those who walk with Him in truth.

God has set aside a 24 hour period each week for His people to seek Him. “Seek the LORD while He may be found” takes on more meaning in light of this. “May be found…” God gives permission to find Him during this weekly 24 hour period.

The Pharisees “kept” the Sabbath, but they did not keep it holy, for they injected ruinous teachings, traditions, and concepts about it. The actual Sabbath day of God, on which they assembled and concocted various restrictions as to what can and cannot be done, cannot be sanctified by us and our actions.

It is already made holy by its Creator. And He has set it apart from the other days of the week that we humans, “the apple of His eye,” could have a lifeline to help us get back into His presence. He made it as a space/time connector, a bridge joining us in our bodies to the spiritual dimension that He dwells in. It is His gift to us–a time to peer into spiritual truths, a time for His Spirit to come down and try out His house, which is us–a time for God and us to rest in each other, after we have ceased from working for our self and rest from the sensation of it being us that is still in the picture.

For it is belief in the death of self, our dying with Christ on the cross (Rom. 6: 1-6), and the belief that He now lives within us in a new heart, that enables us to finally “enter into His rest.” “For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.” Our own works were the acts of sinning, breaking God’s law. When we die with Christ, be buried with Him, and then through faith in the operation of God that raised Him from the dead, we too cease from our old works done by our old selves. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,” (Gal. 5: 24, the “flesh” here being the old sinful carnal nature of man we are born into).

The final crucifixion, the once and for all putting to death of our old sinful nature–that is what we must believe. That is the first step in getting right, in getting our spiritual ducks in a row, that we may enter into His rest, having stopped the insanity of the sin we were bound with.”

For God limits a certain day for special things to happen between Him and His people. That space in time, that portal still is there for some to enter into (Heb. 4: 1-11).  “To day if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” That day is the Sabbath. And if we will soften our hearts with belief in the crucifixion of sin and faith that He has given us a new heart and spirit, then we will enter into His rest, ceasing from our old sins.

For it was the sin of His people that He was grieved with in the wilderness. And they could not enter into His rest because of it. But now, if we do not harden our hearts toward Him and just believe Him that the sin is gone, gone, gone–then we can enter into His rest. For “here remains a rest (a sabbatismos–a keeping of the Sabbath in the Greek) to the people of God” (Heb 4: 9).

So Which Day Is It?

Many traditions of men abound as to when is the Sabbath. Hundreds of millions of Moslems believe that the Sabbath takes place from sundown  Thursday to sundown Friday. The followers of Judaism and several Christian denominations believe that it starts at sundown Friday and ends on sundown Saturday. Then you have billions of Christians who believe that the Sabbath has been changed, replacing it with Sunday as the holy day of God.

Studying the scriptures will give you the answer as to which day is the true Sabbath. Finding this treasure of knowledge is left up to us all. Seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened; ask, and it shall be given, says our Master Christ. We all must prove it out, taking His word and the common sense that He has given us, being prepared to receive the answer, having no pre-conceived imaginations.

To benefit from this communion with God on His Sabbath, we must have erroneous concepts about Him and His plan straightened out and corrected. To be counted as a vessel for Him to pour Himself into, especially on His Sabbath, we must be holy. We must “purge out the old leaven that the lump may be holy.”

But that opens up another can of worms.  What is the old leaven, and how do we purge it out?    Kenneth Wayne Hancock      {If you haven’t visited my website Immortality Road, please do. There you will find over 300 articles and books exploring the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” all written for you, the elect sons and daughters of God, the future rulers with Christ in His soon coming kingdom
https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com }

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October 13, 2012 · 8:40 pm

Feasts, New Moons, and Sabbath Days–Mere Shadows of Christ in Us

The Feast Days of Yahweh, His New Moons and Calendar, and His Sabbath Days–even the Ten Commnadment Law itself–are but a shadow of the spiritual light we are in Him and that He is in us.  A shadow is not the real thing.  We can learn from studying a shadow, but a shadow can never replace the thing that creates the shadow.

After we are crucified with Him, buried with Him, and risen with Christ–after receiving a new heart from the Master, the apostle Paul says this: “Let no man therefore judge you in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come…” (Col. 2: 11-17).  In fact, these feast days and Sabbaths and laws “serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things,” even as God told Moses to “make all things according to the pattern showed to you in the mount” (Heb. 8: 5). All things that Moses laid down to the children of Israel are a “shadow of heavenly things” and not the heavenly things themselves.

And what are these “heavenly things” that the apostle is talking about in Hebrews 8: 5? We children of the living God are those heavenly things! When we finally get it that it is “no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me,” we then are the pattern for all the things that Moses instituted in the first five books.

The old testament was the sprinkling of animal blood upon the tabernacle, for “without the shedding of blood is no remission. But the “heavenly things” needed “better sacrifices than these” for purification (Heb. 9: 23). We, brethren, are those “heavenly things” that needed the blood of the Lamb to purify us!

We now as the spiritual body of Christ were before the sabbaths, before the moon, before food and drink, before the holy days, the feast days, before time, before this earth, before this world.  We are now “risen with Christ” and we  “seek those things which are from above” [Col. 3: 1].  We now yearn to see our true home, our heavenly dwelling.

For God has established in this new walk, this “newness of life,” a spiritual reality (Rom. 6: 4).  It is built upon better promises wherein He says that He will put His Spirit in our minds and hearts and that He will not remember our sins anymore!  This is the new covenant (Jer. 31: 31-34; Heb. 8: 12).

The apostle Paul says that we are a new creation and “are complete in Him… buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” [Col. 2: 10-20].  We are new spiritual righteous creatures now and are not to be judged in respect of what we eat or drink, what holy days, new moons, or sabbaths that are observed.  Why? Because His Spirit now in us was before all the laws and observances were set down on this earth.  This does not give us a license to carelessly break them.  Rather His Spirit in us guides us to that right walk in Him.

In other words, we now do not observe religiously these mentioned things to somehow be accepted by the Father.  To the contrary, we use these to teach us to come to the Savior in a true, meaningful way.

We do not do them to insure that we are okay with God.  That would be working for salvation.  Remember: they are shadows and not the reality of true worship.  Rather they, like the Mosaic Law and the Ten Commandments, are part 0f the “schoolmaster” that Paul refers to, that “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” [Gal. 3: 22-25].

The Schoolmaster

The laws of God are instructive to a seeker of God.  They teach us and help bring us to the cross.  They show us about His plan of redemption.  His feasts show that very plan as a type and shadow of Christ Himself.  The new moons and sabbaths teach us of His plan and timing for His coming kingdom.  But they are but a shadow of the reality that now resides in our hearts.  They are only an image of the reality.  They are made for us to learn from–made for us by our Creator.  But they are only a shadow of the Reality.  That Reality is Christ’s Spirit in us.

Shadows Are Not Real

Shadows have never been the real deal.  Shadows are actually made from a lack of light.  Shadows are in the shape of things or people, but they are not the real thing; they are not a part of reality.  Shadows merely imitate reality; they simulate what is real; they intimate that which is true; they suggest obscurely as to what or who made their image possible. But they are not the real thing.

They do not have the depth.  They lack that third dimension.  Shadows are flat and a bit distorted at times.  They lie upon the earth in only two dimensions.  Something three dimensional is held up off the earth, and light is actually blocked and a flat shadow results–a lack of light laying flat on the earth.  Shadows are earthly phenomenon; they are distinctively of the earth.

Furthermore, shadows have no life in and of themselves.  They are only beneficial in that they resemble at times the thing that blocks the light.  Shadows are dark lifeless representations of other things.  They cannot give life because they have not life to give.  The law, along with the feast days, new moons and sabbaths are a shadow of the reality found in Christ.

We Can Learn from Shadows

But we can learn from shadows.  What do they tell us?  We can glean a rough idea of what something is, what is its shape, what is its function.  But we cannot by embracing a shadow ever obtain the reality.

Shadows are merely lifeless, lightless representations and can never perfect anyone.  They can lead you to the Perfecter, but worshipping and circling a shadow is not worshipping that Glorious Reality.

All shadows disappear when the true Light comes near.  Christ is the Light with “neither shadow nor variableness of turning” [James 1: 7].  The true Light dispels the shadows. When He is truly come inside of us His temple, the Light will cause the shadows–the new moons, feast days, sabbaths, and all other earthly situations of worship to disappear.

These two passages of scripture should become clearer now: “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2: 27).

“The law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient…” (I Tim 1: 9).

I welcome your comments.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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