Manna and the Sabbath

When the Israelites were freed from Egypt and headed toward the promised land of Canaan, they had to pass through the vast wilderness. The journey took forty years. The wilderness is a barren desolate place where there is a lack of food and water. In such a place, an estimated three million people and their livestock did not starve for forty years. It was truly a miracle.

This was because God rained manna from heaven for them to eat. Manna fell for six days, but none on the seventh day. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much as usual. During their 40-year journey in the wilderness, God repeated the weekly cycle of manna to teach them a commandment. It’s the seventh-day Sabbath which God’s people must remember and keep holy.

Today, God’s people are walking the path of faith in a spiritual wilderness. The Sabbath is an indispensable truth on our journey toward the kingdom of heaven, the heavenly Canaan. Let’s see what God wanted to teach His people through the manna.

The Sabbath, a living lesson from the manna

On the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month, around 1500 BC, the Israelites observed the Passover, and the next day—the fifteenth day of the first month, they departed from Egypt, where they had lived as slaves, and set out for Canaan. On the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving Egypt, they arrived at the Desert of Sin. The food they had brought from Egypt was almost gone. As they had no way to get food in the barren wilderness, they grumbled against Moses and Aaron who had led them out of Egypt.

The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.” Ex 16:1–5

God said that He would rain down food from heaven. They called the food “manna.” For five days He provided an equal portion of manna for each person, ensuring that each family had enough to meet their daily needs. On the sixth day, however, He provided a double portion of manna to prepare them for the seventh day, when there would not be any. The manna fell from heaven for six days, and not on the seventh day. The weekly cycle of manna repeated during their 40-year journey in the wilderness. Through this, God thoroughly trained the Israelites every day to remember the Sabbath, a law of God. Furthermore, He appointed the Sabbath as the fourth of the Ten Commandment, which says: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Ex 20:8–11

The Ten Commandments that Moses received on Mount Sinai were God’s unwavering will, which God wrote on the tablets of stone with His own hand. The fourth of the Ten Commandments is to “remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

When God proclaimed the Ten Commandments, He commanded all the people to work for six days and rest on the seventh-day Sabbath—not to do any work, neither themselves, nor their servants, nor their animals, nor any foreigner residing in their towns. The manna, which came down from heaven every day, did not fall on the seventh day. As this was repeated continuously for forty years in the wilderness, the Sabbath commandment became deeply rooted in the people’s lives. In this way, God continually taught the Israelites through manna that the commandment of the seventh-day Sabbath was inseparably connected with them.

The Seventh-day Sabbath is Saturday

The Sabbath originated at Creation. In the beginning, God created all things in six days, and on the seventh day, He rested.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Ge 2:1–3

The seventh day is a memorial to God as our Creator. It is a holy and blessed day unlike any other. During the journey of Israel through the desert, God taught His people about the importance of the Sabbath by letting there be no manna on the seventh day, and He established the Sabbath as part of the Ten Commandments, so that His people could receive His blessings by keeping the Sabbath holy. When they failed to remember the Sabbath and broke it, God did not hesitate to punish them and brought disaster upon them. This was also in accordance with His providence and will to awaken them (Ex 31:12–17; Nu 15:32–36).

The Sabbath is a command of God that God’s people must not forget on their journey of faith through the spiritual wilderness today.

So, what day of the week is the seventh-day Sabbath that is so important?

In those days, the Israelites called the seven days of the week the “first day, second day, . . . sixth day, and seventh day.” Today, we have seven days in a week, and we can see that the seventh day of the week is Saturday, through a dictionary, calendar, etc. The Bible also testifies that the seventh-day Sabbath is Saturday.

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene . . . Mk 16:9

It is proven historically that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday. So, some Bible translations render this phrase as “After Jesus rose from the dead early on Sunday morning” (Mk 16:9, NLT). If Sunday is the first day of the week, it means that the Sabbath is not Sunday. Then, what day is the seventh-day Sabbath according to the Bible? It is, without a doubt, Saturday.

Unfortunately, however, the Sabbath was changed. Until the time of Jesus and the apostles, the church observed the Sabbath on Saturday. But in 321 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine issued a decree by his imperial authority, stating that all people should “rest on the venerable day of the sun” (Sunday). From that time on, the day of worship was changed to Sunday, the day dedicated to the Roman sun god. So, the unbiblical day of worship has been handed down to the church until now.

Some people may think, “Does it really matter whether we worship on Sunday or Saturday?” But God never thinks so. Think about how much effort God put into helping His people understand the importance of the Sabbath during their journey through the wilderness. For forty years He rained down manna for them on a daily basis, and on the sixth day He provided double so that they could spend the seventh-day Sabbath only worshiping God without doing any work. As a result, the Israelites were able to learn the importance of the Sabbath and remember its regulations. We, too, must remember the seventh-day Sabbath and keep it holy, instead of ignoring it.

The consequence of disregarding God’s laws and decrees

The Israelites kept God’s commandments, including the Sabbath, and they were blessed to enter Canaan after completing their desert journey. Even after they entered Canaan, they received God’s grace when they obeyed God’s laws. But in any age, when they ignored God’s laws and decrees, they could not escape His punishment.

This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not relent. Because they have rejected the law of the LORD and have not kept his decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed, I will send fire on Judah that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem.” Am 2:4–5

When the LORD could no longer endure your wicked actions and the detestable things you did, your land became a curse and a desolate waste without inhabitants, as it is today. Because you have burned incense and have sinned against the LORD and have not obeyed him or followed his law or his decrees or his stipulations, this disaster has come upon you, as you now see. Jer 44:22–23

In Old Testament times, disaster and destruction came upon those who did not keep God’s laws and decrees. God’s judgment will come upon the world because people have sinned against God. God says that their sin is that they have not observed His law.

The great day of the LORD is near—near and coming quickly. . . That day will be a day of wrath— a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness— a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the corner towers. I will bring such distress on all people that they will grope about like those who are blind, because they have sinned against the LORD. . . Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the LORD’s wrath. Zep 1:14–18

“When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God?’ then say to them, ‘It is because your ancestors forsook me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law.’ ” Jer 16:10–11

The Bible also says that those who have sinned against God—those who have not followed God’s decrees and laws—will be blotted out of the book of life and they will not be able to enter the kingdom of God (Ex 32:33; Rev 20:15). The laws of God include many festivals and truths of the new covenant. Among them is the seventh-day Sabbath, the weekly festival.

The Sabbath is a commandment of God that only God’s people can keep. To those who do not believe in God, it may seem meaningless, but to God’s people it is a very precious and blessed day. Do not come to church to worship just out of habit when the seventh-day Sabbath—Saturday—comes. Instead, come with gladness and gratitude to God for bestowing blessings every Sabbath day. If you do so, God will bless you and transform you all into beautiful and holy children of heaven.

The Sabbath, a life-giving law given through God’s sacrifice

The soul that sins cannot escape judgment, but the one who follows God’s decrees and laws will be saved.

The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them. But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. Eze 18:20–21

We are sinners who have been cast down to the earth as a result of committing a mortal sin in heaven (Ro 6:23). Yet God had compassion on us and came to this earth to redeem us from our sin by establishing the new covenant law of salvation through His sacrifice on the cross. Whoever keeps it can receive the forgiveness of sins and go back to the eternal kingdom of heaven. This providence of God is manifested in the new covenant. The Sabbath, too, is a life-giving law of the new covenant that God established to save sinners who were destined to die.

Let us think about how earnestly God desires us to receive the forgiveness of sins and salvation. Not keeping the Sabbath, which God established to save our life, is no different than profaning God.

Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common. . . they shut their eyes to the keeping of my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them . . . So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD. Eze 22:26–31

The earth we live on is just an insignificant speck of dust in the vast and infinite universe. God, who rules over the entire universe, laid aside all His heavenly glory and power to come down to this lowly earth, clothing Himself in human flesh. Although no one welcomed Him and He was only slandered and ridiculed, He silently bore the burden of the cross and established the truth of the new covenant. It was all for the sake of our salvation.

Those who despise and ignore the laws of the new covenant, which God established through His sacrifice, will have no further opportunity for salvation. This earth is the last place where we can repent, and the laws of the new covenant are the last way for us to repent. God has provided the way for us, sinners from heaven, to repent and go back to the eternal kingdom of heaven, through His laws and regulations. If we despise and disobey them, we will never escape judgment.

All of us, people of Zion, must pay closer attention to God’s word and treasure His decrees and laws. The Israelites were trained by God Himself to keep the seventh-day Sabbath for forty years in the wilderness. Likewise, we are continually being taught by Heavenly Father and Mother about the Sabbath regulations of the new covenant on our journey of faith through the spiritual wilderness. Our Father came to this truthless world a second time and restored the laws of the new covenant for His children while walking the gospel path for 37 years. Even now, our Heavenly Mother is with us and guides us in the truth of life.

From creation until now, our Elohim has personally taught us to keep the Sabbath. Until the moment we reach the heavenly Canaan, let us remember the seventh day Sabbath and keep it holy, so that we can enjoy eternal rest.