Sunday - The Judgment, Creation and Accountability

The message of the three angels flying in midair in Revelation 14 announces that “the hour of His judgment has come” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV). Since we were created by God with the capacity to make moral choices, we are responsible for the decisions we make. If we were merely a random collection of cells, products of our heredity and environment only, our actions would largely be determined by forces over which we had no control. But judgment implies moral responsibility. In this crisis hour of earth’s history, the judgment hour, God calls us to make decisions in the light of eternity. The first angel’s earnest appeal to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of waters” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV) acknowledges that the basis of all worship is the fact that we were created by God.

Monday - The Sabbath & Creation

Sabbath is an eternal symbol of our rest in Him. It is a special sign of loyalty to the Creator (Ezek. 20:12, 20). Rather than an arbitrary legalistic requirement, it reveals that true rest from righteousness by works is found in Him. The Sabbath speaks of a God who has achieved for us what we could never do for ourselves. Scripture calls us to rest in His love and care each Sabbath. Sabbath is a symbol of rest, not works; of grace, not legalism; of assurance, not condemnation; of depending upon Him, not upon ourselves. Each Sabbath we rejoice in His goodness, and praise Him for the salvation that can be found only in Christ.

Tuesday - A Not-So-Subtle Deception

The first chapter of Genesis affirms that God created the world in six literal days of 24 hours and rested on the seventh. The linguistic structure of Genesis 1 and 2 does not permit anything else. Even scholars who don’t believe in the literal six-day Creation acknowledge that the author’s intent was to teach the six-day Creation. Also if God did not create the world in six literal days, what significance does the seventh-day Sabbath have? Why would God command it? It would make absolutely no sense at all to leave the Sabbath as an eternal legacy of a six-day Creation week if a six-day Creation week never existed to begin with. It also raises serious questions regarding the integrity of Scripture. By attacking the Sabbath, Satan is challenging the very heart of God’s authority, and what could be more effective in destroying the memorial of the six-day Creation than by denying the reality of the six-day Creation? No wonder so many people, including Christians, ignore the seventh-day Sabbath. What a setup for the final deception.

Wednesday - Creation, The Sabbath and The End Time

These passages make it clear that the central issue in the conflict in the last days between good and evil, Christ and Satan, is worship. Do we worship the Creator or the beast? And because Creation forms the ground of all our beliefs (after all, what do we believe that makes any sense apart from God as our Creator?), the seventh-day Sabbath — embedded in the Genesis Creation account itself (Gen. 2:1-3) — stands as the eternal and immutable sign of that Creation. It’s the most basic symbol of the most basic teaching. The only thing more fundamental to it is God Himself.

Thursday - The Sabbath and Eternal Rest

The Sabbath is a place of refuge in a weary world. Each week we leave the cares of this world and enter God’s retreat center — the Sabbath. The famed Jewish author, Abraham Heschel, calls the Sabbath “a palace in time.” — The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), p. 12. Each seventh day, God’s heavenly palace descends from heaven to earth, and the Lord invites us into the glory of His presence for this 24-hour period to spend a time of intimate fellowship with Him.