A Sign at Creation
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Image #1
Why did it take the Lord six days, to make the heavens and the Earth?
Couldn’t He have made it all in six seconds?
What is the Lord trying to teach us here?
Psm 25 (v. 4) Show me Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your paths.
So, the Lord teaches us, by showing an example for us to learn by!
Gen 1 (v. 14) Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years."
Let there be lights, for signs and seasons, and for days and years!!
Image #2
What sign do we have for the seasons?
A farmer uses the lunar month for the growing season or the harvesting season as directed by the phases of the moon.
Image #3
What sign do we have for a day?
The period of the earth’s rotation on its axis, the time of light between one night and the next.
Gen 1 (v. 5) God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Image #4
What sign do we have for a year?
The earth revolves around the sun once a year. Every 365 days, is required for one revolution of the earth around the sun.
What sign do we have for the weekly cycle? This is what we need to focus on, all through this lesson. We need a sign to remind us of the weekly cycle and of who created it.
The Sabbath, as the Bible reveals it, is a weekly celebration of God's power as our Creator. If we should ever forget the Sabbath, God knew that in time we would also forget Him as the Creator.[1]
Exod 20 (v. 10)....but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.... (v. 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.
And in fact, that is exactly what has happened. The world has almost universally forgotten the Sabbath....The result? Most of us no longer even believe in a Creator. Against all logic and reason, we prefer to believe that human beings are descended from apes....or even from floating bits of protoplasm in a primordial sea, ignited into life by the chance strike of a passing lightning bolt.[1]
What is it about the creation week that reminds us to worship the Creator?
Psm 121 (v. 1) I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help? (v. 2) My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Satan was seeking to exalt himself and to draw men away from Christ, and he worked to pervert the Sabbath, because it is the sign of the power of Christ. The Jewish leaders accomplished the will of satan by surrounding God’s rest day with burdensome requirements.[2]
What does this sign do for us?
Ezek 20 (v 12) Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
As long as you and I set aside the seventh day to worship our Creator, we will never lose sight of who we are, where we came from, or what our eternal destiny may be. Every seventh day, we are forever linked with our Creator.[3]
Was this sign of worship ever to be changed in the future to Sunday worship?
Exod 31 (v. 16) Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. (v. 17) It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.
Image #5
I know we all can agree that the words “perpetual” and “forever” meant that God was never going to do away with it or to change it. Why?
Mal 3 (v. 6) For I am the Lord, I do not change….
God doesn’t make mistakes, He does everything perfectly.
Heb 13 (v. 8) Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
So was this Sabbath just for the children of Israel?
Nowhere in the Bible is the Sabbath called "the Sabbath of the Jews"....The Sabbath is more than a memorial of creation. It is a weekly reminder of the profound relationship between God and man, an acknowledgement of God's divinity, "that you may know that I am the Lord your God."[4]
Mark 2 (v. 27) And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man….”
I believe that this is clear, that it means all men and not just the Israelites!
In the days of Christ the Sabbath had become so perverted that its observance reflected the character of selfish.…men rather than the character of the loving heavenly Father. The rabbis virtually represented God as giving laws which it was impossible for men to obey. They led the people to look upon God as a tyrant, and to think that the observance of the Sabbath, as He required it, made men hardhearted and cruel.[5]
Now you might think, well that was those people in the old testament times that did that; but who do you think was behind it then and behind that kind of thinking today?
Lucifer, the covering cherub, desired to be first in heaven. He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself. Therefore he misrepresented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-exaltation. With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving Creator.…He led them to doubt the word of God, and to distrust His goodness. Because God is a God of justice and terrible majesty, satan caused them to look upon Him as severe and unforgiving.[6]
References:
1. Mark Finley, (1995). Beyond Orion's Gates, p.142
2. E.G. White, The Desire of Ages, p.283, par.4
3. Mark Finley, (1995). Beyond Orion's Gates, p.145
4. Mark Finley, (1995). Beyond Orion's Gates, p.148
5. E.G. White, The Desire of Ages, p.284, par.1
6. E.G. White, The Desire of Ages, p.21, par.3
Image #1: God Images, (n.d.). Creation earth picture by @Jesus_The_Lord. Retrieved from http://globalmedicalco.com/group/G%20O%20D%20Images/
Image #2: Greenview, (2017). Gardening by the moon phases. Retrieved from https://www.greenviewfertilizer.com/articles/gardening-by-the-moon/
Image #3: Tutorial Home, (2016). Rotation of the Earth and its effects. Retrieved from https://www.tutorialathome.in/geography/rotation-earth
Image #4: Tutorial Home, (2016). Revolution of the Earth around the Sun. Retrieved from https://www.tutorialathome.in/geography/revolution-earth
Image #5: DIY Logo Designs, (2017). Perpetual Infinity Image. Retrieved from http://diylogodesigns.com/blog/famous-australian-brands-logos/perpetual-limited-australia-logo/
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