16 And the children of Israel are to keep the Sabbath holy, from generation to generation, by an eternal agreement.

17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever; because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he took his rest and had pleasure in it. 18 And when his talk with Moses on Mount Sinai was ended, he gave him the two stones of the law, two stones on which was the writing made by the finger of God. What is sanctification? A big word that we dont think about too often. Sanctification is what Yahweh does so that we can stay empowered in our relationship. This means that it is not something that we can do. It is not something we can work for. It is something that God does to show us how much He really wants to do in our lives. It is His part of an agreement He has with his people. This name for God is important because it is what God does throughout the Bible and today. We often think that sanctification is only because God needs purity. That is true. God cannot look at sin so he required a blood sacrifice. But the sacrifice was not only blood but it had to be from a perfect animal and the first born. God was very specific. If you remember last week we read Malachi and the abuse of the sacrifice. Malachi is at the end of the Old Testament while the scripture today is at the beginning. When we discover why the idea of being a sanctifier is more than just the sacrifice, we will discover a character of god that we often do not associate with Him. We often think of God as the Judge, Christ as the door to heaven, and the Holy Spirit as the seal. These are all true. But we find that God shows Himself much more in these verses if we dare to look a bit closer. We can argue which is the Sabbath day. We can argue about what to do on the Sabbath. I think that we will find that there are many other faiths and religions that keep the rules more strictly than we do. I used to have go to College with a family who would not buy gas or groceries on Sunday. It was the day of rest and they rested. They were criticized for it but they wanted to keep the Sabbath. What we find in verse 13 is that God wants us to be reminded of the promise that He made between His people and Himself. He wanted us to see His work of sanctification. He wanted us to see Him in a fresh way. Remember the daily life of the Old Testament was not easy. Each person or tribe had a job to do that focused on the support of the tabernacle. The work that needed to be done was never done. The rest was needed to become refreshed.

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