But when you look at this, this seems extreme on the surface of like, why would you get the death penalty for working on the Sabbath?
But the reason why is because of the fact that this is symbolic of salvation, because the Bible teaches us, and I'm not going to re-preach this because I've already taught it multiple times in this Exodus series already, and I've done whole sermons on it, but the Bible is clear in the New Testament that Jesus is our Sabbath.
Jesus has fulfilled the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath was a picture of us resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ and not trying to work our way to heaven, but basically ceasing from our own works and resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus did all the work for us to be saved.
It's his perfect, sinless life, his death, burial, resurrection, and everything that goes into the gospel that saves us.
It's not any work that we do.
It's the finished work of Christ that saves us, and that's what the Sabbath represents.
So it makes sense from a symbolic perspective, why the breaking the Sabbath would be punished by the death penalty.
If someone is just going to just ignore this or desecrate this, the picture is that if you try to work your way to heaven, you're going to hell.
If you violate that Sabbath principle by saying, oh, I'm not going to rest in what Jesus has done, I'm going to heaven because I go to church, because I've repented of all my sins, and I've turned over a new leaf, and I don't do this anymore, and I don't do that anymore, and I got baptized, and I joined the church, and I paid the tithe, and all that.
You know, if you're going to trust in your works to get you to heaven, you are not saved, and so that's death for you.
I mean, that's, you're going to the second death, right?
You're going to the lake of fire, and so the reason why there's such a strict punishment here on the Sabbath is to send us a strong message that salvation is not by works.
Salvation is by rest, not by works, right?
We rest in the finished work of Christ.
We trust the work of Christ.
Now, again, that's a whole sermon of itself.
I've preached it many times, even recently.
Hebrews chapter four is the chapter to read on that.
Let's move on.
So he says, no work shall be done, etc.
Look at verse four.