Yah bless you on this glorious Shabbat day!
Linda Rose
Mark of the Beast or Seal of the Feasts: Can We Leave the Gates Open on Shabbat and High Sabbaths?
Do Shabbat and the High Sabbaths of the moedim really provide a seamless connection between the six days of work and the Seven? In a fallen world, the gates must be closed in order to stop the fires of commerce from burning within. Review Nehemiah 10, and the precedent for the thematic sevens of Revelation are presented with the problem of Shabbat commerce.
The mark of the beast in Revelation is one that strikes fear even in the hearts of many believers. They fear that without some visible mark, they will not be able to buy or sell...at all. The precedent, however, is more sensible and based on a moed as old as Genesis One: six days to work and a Shabbat. The key words are "buy" and "sell."
Nehemiah notes and reprimands the Sabbath breaking workers and merchants:
In
those days I saw in Judah some who were treading wine presses on the
sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as
well as wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of loads, and they brought them
into Jerusalem on the sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they
sold food. (Nehemiah 13:15)
Then I
reprimanded the nobles of Judah and said to them, 'What is this evil
thing you are doing, by profaning the sabbath day?' (17)
Nehemiah
still has a problem. The Sabbath-breakers simply will not cease from
their commerce! Hearts have not changed. His solution:
It
came about that just as it grew dark at the gates of Jerusalem before
the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and that they
should not open them until after the sabbath. Then I stationed some of
my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the sabbath day.
(19)
And I commanded the Levites that they
should purify themselves and come as gatekeepers to sanctify the sabbath
day. For this also remember me, O my God, and have compassion on me
according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness. (22)
In
order to stop the unholy mixture of six working days bleeding into
Shabbat, the Levites had to become gatekeepers of Jerusalem. The six and
the seven are consecutive and have a relationship to one another, but
they are not identical. They are knit together, yet separate! Six is the
number of preparation, but seven is the number of celebration in
completion. The fabric of the week is beautifully seamless, yet
set-apart to achieve the holiness in unity.Nehemiah reiterates the holiness of Shabbat to the Jews, reminding them that it is not a day to buy and sell. John's symbolism of the 6s and 7s in Revelation is a repetition of this warning, and John's woe to the merchants of Babylon is even longer and more detailed!
Shabbat Dweller or Shabbat Rebeller?
Beast worshipers do not observe Shabbat, for rest is what defines the Sabbath.:
And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name." (Revelation 14:11)
However, the children of the Woman who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Yeshua persevere in the holiness of the Word. They rest when the Father teaches them to rest. Mitzvot keepers in Yeshua observe Shabbat:
Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, "Write, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!'" "Yes," says the Spirit, "so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them." (Revelation 14:12-13)
Read these three verses carefully, and the importance of Shabbat in Revelation emerges. Shabbat is the preparation of the saints to rest from their labors, for the Shabbat-keeper is followed by his deeds the same way that the week is a preparation for Shabbat, and on Shabbat one enjoys all that has been prepared. It is not a time to create more, but to enjoy and take pleasure in the prepared things.
For the unrepentant Shabbat-rebeller, the deeds never cease, and the torment is no rest day and night. In a thorough search of Scripture, it is plain that the characteristic of the unrestrained nefesh (soul) is desire that is never satisfied, especially after the body of flesh dies. The nefesh continues to have existence, but not life. Only the satiety of the Ruach brings satisfaction to the nefesh in this world or the next. The deeds in which the wicked put trust become a torment, not a pleasure; however, a saint dedicates his daily deeds toward the observance of Shabbat, a sign of a whole transformation of spirit. The perseverance of the saints is rest from their labors according to the mitzvah.
Nehemiah takes it a step farther and includes the shmittah Sabbaths of the Land:
As for the peoples of the land who bring wares or any grain on the sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the sabbath or a holy day; and we will forego the crops the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. (Nehemiah 10:31)
Although Nehemiah had to resort to the drastic measure of setting the Levites as gatekeepers to shut out the merchants on Shabbats and high Sabbaths, Isaiah prophesies of a time when there has been a significant change in the hearts of those who go to Jerusalem. Any wealth brought in the gates will be directed toward the worship of Adonai and to beautify His Temple. Those who enter the city are sealed with the seal of the four-vav shin on the shel rosh tefillin, which represents the Ruach (Holy Spirit), along with the three-vav shin (666) of the outward deeds on the arm.
The Seven Spirits of Adonai go throughout the earth with the four horseman to separate those who are "stagnant in Spirit" (Zechariah) from those who keep the mitzvot in Ruach AND in deed. A mere 666 is only the letter of the Torah. It is the number of both man and beast who are created on the Sixth Day. Man, however, is made in the image of Elohim, not the Beast, and he worships in the Spirit, not merely the appetites that feed the self. A man was created to be more than 666, for because The Holy One ceased from Creation on the Seventh Day, man, too, transforms from six to Seven in order to prepare for the Eighth Day beyond the Seventh Millennium, a time of perfection beyond the veil of flesh. The Ruach sets the man apart from the beast. The nefesh of one who worships Elohim longs for the desire of the Ruach, not the desire of earthly flesh.
In a city filled with the Light of the Torah, a city where the Lamp is the Lamb, no gatekeepers are needed:
Your gates will be open continually;
They will not be closed day or night,
So that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations,
With their kings led in procession. (Isaiah 60:11)
No longer will those who build Jerusalem's walls have to build and fight their enemies simultaneously, for:
Foreigners will build up your walls, and their kings will minister to you; (10)
John again teaches thematically with Nehemiah and Isaiah:
The
nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring
their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there)
its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the
honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who
practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those
whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Revelation
21:24-27)
Wow! What a city! Those who live and enter there
will need no gatekeepers, for they have conspired with The Holy One to
guard and remember His Sabbaths and moedim. They have power of the Ruach
HaKodesh invigorating their physical strength and directing their
nafshim to keep the mitzvoth. They are the clean seed of the Woman, and
they don't rely or wait on a feeling of obedience; instead they got
tefillin. Leave the gates open forever, for their hearts are
transformed.No wonder those merchants are weeping over Mystery Babylon, for she has been purged and the City of Good Gold restored to her place in the Garden. She won't buy any more stories from a beast of the field.
Seeing that we have so great a resurrection of ruach, nefesh, and guf (body) in our Messiah Yeshua, let us strive to give the Light of Shabbat to the world. Invite someone in to taste and see that El Shaddai is Good, and instead of buying and selling, feeding appetites of desire that will never be satisfied apart from the Ruach, "sell" the gospel. If it is a joy to you, it is a Light to others!