2.  Sabbath Principle:
WE MUST PROVIDE FOR CREATION'S SABBATH RESTS

Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 require that one day in seven be set aside as a day of rest for people and for animals.  As human beings and animals are to be given their times of sabbath rest, so also is the land.  Exodus 23 commands, "For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild beasts may eat." "You may ask, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?"" God's answer in Leviticus 25 and 26 is:"I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years," so do not worry, but practice this law so that your land will be fruitful.  "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit."

Christ in the New Testament clearly teaches that the Sabbath is made for the ones served by it-not the other way around.  Thus, the sabbath year is given to protect the land from relentless exploitation, to help the land rejuvenate, to help it get things together again; it is a time of rest and restoration.  This sabbath is not merely a legalistic requirement; rather, it is a profound principle.  Thus in some Christian farming communities, the sabbath principle is practiced by letting the land rest every second year, "because that is what the land needs."  And of course, it is not therefore restricted to agriculture but applies to all Creation.  The Bible warns in Leviticus 26,"...if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, ...Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins... Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time it lies desolate...then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.  All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it."