HERITAGE OF JACOB

 

 

 

Isaiah has, once again, tugged at my heartstrings today. I have understood for a while now the law of the Sabbath and the direct blessings that stem from it, namely: divine protection, temporal plenty, and spiritual power. However, Isaiah chapter 58 has taken this to another level for me.

 

Isaiah referred to the sabbath day as ‘the holy of the Lord’ (v 13).  Holy means to be sanctified or be set apart for the work of God. This again I knew because Sabbath day is the day of sanctification. So important did Jehovah consider this concept that He made non-observance of the Sabbath, anciently, punishable by death to symbolise spiritual death that would come from abstinence of sanctification. 

 

Isaiah added another blessing as a promise for Sabbath observance when he said the Lord would cause us ‘to ride upon the high places of the earth’ (v14). Since mountains and high places of the earth have anciently always been sites of revelation and communication with God, this would suggest that keeping the Sabbath holy would entitle us to the same. But this is what caught in my throat as I read the finish of that sentence: ‘….and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father’ (v14). As ‘heritage’ comes from the same root as ‘heir’ and ‘inherit’, it means only one thing: exaltation, even as our righteous father Jacob, or Israel, the father of our covenant, has received it (D&C 132:37).

 

This is not all. Chapter 56 says that anyone who observes ‘sabbaths’ will be exalted. Anciently, all Israel’s festivals and feast days such as Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, the day of Atonement and the weekly sabbath day were grouped together under the term ‘sabbaths’. Jehovah referred to the observance of these sabbaths as ‘taking hold of my covenant’ (v6), meaning that these sabbaths embraced the entire Mosaic law. It is obvious then that sabbath observance alone does not guarantee exaltation but the observance of the entire law of the gospel does.

 

I have heard it say that the extent of our Sabbath day observance is a good indication of our devotion to God the Father and His Son, who laid the foundations of this earth in order that we might ‘ride upon its high places’ and be fed with the ‘heritage of our father Jacob’. This is a devotion that is for the serious followers of Christ. This is a devotion for those who truly love Him and the Father who sent Him.

 

I have no life but this

To follow the path to Thy throne

To be greeted with a holy kiss,

And know the reality of such bliss.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: As I Have Loved You by Greg Olsen)