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Intermediate Sunday School Lesson 71 : The Doctrine of the Sabbath

Text: Matthew 12
2 July 2023

INTERMEDIATE SUNDAY SCHOOL 2 JULY 2023
STUDIES IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
Text: Matthew 12

Subject: The Doctrine of the Sabbath

1At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”
3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:
4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?
6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.
7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Matthew 12:1-8

THE SABBATH DOCTRINE

1.The Ten Commandments were given by the LORD to Israel

2. The 4th Commandment stated

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Exodus 20:8-11

THE YOKE OF THE PHARISEES

1. They had made the Sabbath to become a yoke

2. Anything that seems to resemble work was deemed as a breaking of the Sabbath Law

A SABBATH INCIDENT

1. The Lord Jesus and His Disciples

a) They were passing a grain field
b) His disciples plucked some grain for food

2. The Pharisees saw the Disciples doing this and they attacked them

“Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”

Matthew 12:2

a) They assumed that the Disciples had violated the Sabbath
b) They questioned the Lord Jesus as to why He had allowed them to break the Sabbath
c) But was the Sabbath law actually broken?

THE RESPONSE OF THE LORD JESUS

3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:
4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?

Matthew 12:3-5

1. The Lord Jesus cited two things to counter the charge of the Pharisees

a) The incident of David and his men eating the shewbread (1 Sam. 21)
i) Why did Ahimelech give the shewbread to David and his men?
ii) Did he not “break the law?”
b) The work of priests in the Temple on the Sabbath
i) Their main work was in the Temple
ii) They worked on the Sabbath too
iii) They actually “profane” the Sabbath but are considered “blameless”

2. What God looks for in Man

a) He does not look for “sacrifice”
b) He desires the practice of “mercy”
i) Kindness
ii) Graciousness
iii) Understanding

3. An astounding truth declared

“For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath”

Matthew 12:8

a) The Lord Jesus is the Son of Man
b) He is Lord
c) He is Lord of the Sabbath
i) He has authority and power
ii) He has declarative power
iii) He declares that His Disciples had not broken the Sabbath