The Bottom Line

When you have entered the land I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath rest before the LORD every seventh year. For six years you may plant your fields . . . but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest.   Leviticus 25:2-4

The Sabbath day was to be “dedicated to the LORD your God” (Exodus 20:10). It was a day for worship, a day to be renewed in body, soul, and spirit. People will make different choices about what is appropriate on this day, but whatever we do, we must not make it another day of work. And if you think that the principle of the Sabbath day is challenging, you ain’t heard nothing yet!

Not only did God say that the people were to rest from their work one day out of seven, but he also said that the land was to lie inactive one out of every seven years.

God gave a special promise in connection with the Sabbath year: he would send a bumper crop in the sixth year so that there would be enough food to sustain the people in the seventh year and in the planting of the eighth year (see Leviticus 25:20-22).

How would you have reacted to the Sabbath year? Perhaps you would look at your fields and say to yourself, “What a waste! This Sabbath law is costing me a whole year of income. Think of the money I could make if I worked my fields!”

The Sabbath law placed a restraint on greed. God’s people were to learn how to say no to something good in order to say yes to something better. So one year in every seven, they passed up a year’s wages in order to learn again that there is more to life than work and money.

In a world of greed, practice restraint. Maybe you’re the kind of person who wants to say yes to every opportunity. Without the Sabbath principle of restraint, your life would have no margins. You need to take a day off, and you need to take a vacation. These are not luxuries; they are God’s principles for maintaining spiritual health.

For further reading, see Hebrews 4