Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190011B
|
00:01 So how did people come to the place that they can
00:03 deny the evidence of God Himself, even though they 00:06 can see the creation, and see themselves, and see the design. 00:10 It's like one well known evolutionist said, 00:14 he said, "Well, the universe appears to be designed, 00:19 but it's not." 00:21 And I want to say, if it looks like a duck 00:24 and walks like a duck, it's because it is a duck. 00:26 It looks designed because it has a Designer behind it. 00:30 It's because people are unthankful. 00:33 And the Bible says that, "They did not glorify God, 00:37 nor were they thankful, 00:38 and they became futile in their own thoughts..." 00:41 And ultimately, even though they were professing 00:44 to become wise, or to be wise, they became fools. 00:49 And really, that kind of describes the world 00:51 that we live in today. 00:53 So God allows people to go their own way. 00:58 And we're seeing the world in a mess, chaos, 01:01 and all the garbage that humanity has 01:05 gotten itself involved in. 01:07 But we want to come back to Revelation chapter 13 01:11 and this whole issue of worship. 01:13 This image to the beast causes the world to worship 01:17 the first beast, in verse 12 of chapter 13. 01:21 So this worship is a big deal. 01:24 And then of course we have, it says it caused those 01:28 who would not worship the beast to be killed, verse 15. 01:32 That is a big issue. 01:33 It's the center issue in the final controversy 01:37 that's going on between Christ and Satan. 01:40 Some people say, "Well how can these beasts... 01:42 You know, I want to see Jesus, I want to see Jesus." 01:45 And we all want to see Jesus. I want to underline that. 01:49 But you know, "Don't talk to me about the beasts." 01:51 And yet the book of Revelation is a revelation of Jesus. 01:54 We have to understand, there is a great controversy going on 01:58 between Jesus and the great red dragon. 02:00 Between Jesus and His supporters on earth, 02:04 His agencies on earth, 02:06 and the great red dragon and his agencies on earth. 02:09 And this thing is coming to a clash in the end of time, 02:13 to a culmination, and it's going to resolve 02:16 around and revolve around the issue of worship. 02:21 The worship; God who created the heavens and the earth. 02:26 So since this worship issue is such a big thing, 02:29 we want to go back to seeing Jesus as He's moving 02:32 through the heavenly Sanctuary, as we've mentioned earlier. 02:36 The ark of the covenant now, when you get into Revelation 02:39 chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, the rest of the book of Revelation, 02:44 it's focusing now on Jesus' ministry in the 02:47 heavenly Sanctuary, in the Most Holy Place. 02:51 And that is going to take us through to the end of time. 02:54 In the Most Holy Place is the one piece of furniture 02:58 that's called, the ark of the covenant. 03:00 And the ark of the covenant contains the Ten Commandments. 03:04 Above that is the mercy seat. 03:05 And aren't we glad for the mercy seat? 03:07 So above the law of God is the mercy seat 03:10 where we can find forgiveness if we break the law of God. 03:14 But we want to take a look at these Ten Commandments. 03:16 The first four of those Ten Commandments 03:19 talk to us about the worship of God. 03:22 That becomes center and foremost. 03:24 And those first four we are going to talk about 03:25 for a few minutes here. 03:27 And worship is the theme of those first four commandments. 03:31 The first commandment tells us that there is 03:33 only one God to worship. 03:36 Only one. 03:37 And the second one tells us how not to worship Him, 03:41 because He's a jealous God. 03:44 Well people say, "Why is God jealous?" 03:46 Let me ask you, as parents aren't you jealous 03:49 for the love of your children? 03:51 Let me ask you husbands, aren't you jealous 03:53 for the love of your wife? 03:55 And women, aren't you jealous for the love of your husband? 03:59 There's a good kind of jealousy, a proper kind of jealousy. 04:02 And God says that He's jealous. 04:04 He loves His children. 04:06 And He wants their love. 04:07 And He has a right to their love. 04:08 And so the second commandment tells us 04:10 you can't worship God with images made, 04:14 and bowing down to them, and material things. 04:17 Because, "God is Spirit, and we worship Him," as Jesus said, 04:21 "in spirit and in truth." 04:24 He's a jealous God. 04:26 And the third commandment tells us that to worship Him 04:29 is serious business. 04:33 It's serious business, and that we don't take 04:35 God's name in vain. 04:37 You know, in our world, of course some people have 04:40 changed that, but in the normal sense when a woman marries 04:43 a man, she takes his last name. 04:46 Is that name important to her for the rest of her life? 04:49 Of course it's important. 04:50 When we become the Lord's, we take His name. 04:53 And His name should be reverenced and appreciated. 04:57 And then there's the fourth commandment. 05:00 But before I say anything about the fourth commandment, 05:03 let me ask a question. 05:05 Can a worshiper change any one of these four commandments 05:12 and still worship God? 05:15 Can you change God's commandments 05:18 and still worship Him? 05:22 Well let's look at that fourth commandment. 05:23 The fourth commandment sums up all four of the commandments, 05:28 the first three, declaring that God of the Ten Commandments 05:32 is indeed the Creator of the universe. 05:36 It tells us who God is. He's Jehovah. 05:39 It tells us that He's the Creator, 05:41 and that we're not to worship the creation. 05:44 It tells us that God is the Creator of the universe 05:47 and demands reverence. 05:49 And it tells us when to worship. 05:53 When to worship. 05:54 Genesis, by the way, is the origin 05:56 of that fourth commandment. 05:58 And in the book of Genesis we have this very fascinating 06:02 picture as God finished the creation. 06:06 And this is what God said, 06:08 He added another day to the creation. 06:11 The creation was done in seven days, 06:14 not six days. 06:16 Because the seventh day is the Sabbath, 06:19 and it's part of God's creation. 06:21 God created a sanctuary of time. 06:26 I'll come back to that, but let's go back to 06:28 Genesis chapter 1 here. 06:32 I'm sorry, chapter 2 the first three verses. 06:35 "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, 06:38 and all the host of them were finished." 06:40 Now notice how many times God uses the word, "seventh day." 06:45 "And on the seventh day God ended His work 06:48 which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day... 06:52 And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, 06:58 because in it He rested from His work 07:01 which He had created and made." 07:03 It's mentioned three times, the seventh day. 07:06 And I haven't talked about the wonderful numbers, 07:09 the perfect numbers, but three is one of those numbers. 07:12 And three is a symbol of divinity. 07:16 So what does the word, "sanctify," mean? 07:19 What does that mean? 07:20 It means that you set something apart for holy use. 07:25 You consecrate it. 07:26 You hallow it. You dedicate it. 07:29 People dedicate things all the time. 07:31 I mean, you know, some guys, they really like their cars 07:34 or their motorcycles. 07:36 And that's kind of dedicated as far as they're concerned. 07:39 And they don't want anybody else touching that car 07:41 or that motorcycle. 07:43 Why? Because it's special to them. 07:45 It's very special to them. 07:47 And people do this kind of thing with 07:49 material objects, of course. 07:51 The seventh day, however, was made unique from other days. 07:55 Now people say, "Well, isn't it just like any other day?" 07:59 Well, yes, it's time. It's one 24 hour period. 08:04 It would look like any other day, except for one thing. 08:07 And that is that God blessed it, and hallowed it, 08:10 and sanctified it, and made it special. 08:13 Now let me tell you this. 08:15 The seventh day is, the seventh day Sabbath 08:20 is evidence of creation. 08:25 And one reason we have so much problem with worshiping God 08:28 as Creator is because people have forgotten 08:31 the seventh day. 08:33 And the fourth commandment starts 08:34 with the word, "Remember." 08:37 Because God knew how easy it would be for people to forget. 08:40 Let me explain what I mean by that, that it's evidence. 08:44 Why is it that we have months? 08:46 Well, the months are governed by the moon. 08:49 Why is it that we have years? 08:51 It's governed by the sun. 08:53 Why is it that we have days? 08:55 Because the earth turns on its axis in 24 hours. 09:00 So the day, the month, the year is all governed 09:05 by the earth, the sun, and the moon. 09:08 But what about the seventh day? 09:10 Why do we have a weekly cycle 09:14 of seven days? 09:15 Where did that come from? 09:18 There's only one explanation. 09:21 It came from God who created the earth in seven days 09:26 and took the seventh day and sanctified it 09:29 and hallowed it. 09:31 So what did God create on the seventh day? 09:33 He created a sanctuary of time. 09:36 Now you know, we dedicate and hallow things here. 09:39 If somebody builds a church, what is it built out of? 09:42 Isn't it built out of brick, and mortar, and wood, and stone? 09:46 But do we treat that church like any other old building 09:49 that we have? No. 09:52 We hallow that church. 09:55 We hallow it because we have sanctified it. 10:00 We have made it special. 10:02 It's not for common use. 10:04 And what God did with the seventh day is He made it 10:08 not for common use. 10:10 So you're not earning your living on that day. 10:12 You're not doing the common things. 10:14 Because now you have time. 10:17 God wants time with you. 10:19 Now you know this, we hear it all the time. 10:22 If you want to build a relationship with your children, 10:24 you need to spend time. 10:26 If you want to build a relationship with your husband 10:28 or your wife, you need to spend time. 10:31 If you're going to have friendship with people, 10:33 you need time. 10:35 And God loves us, and He wants to spend time. 10:39 In His great wisdom He sanctified, hallowed, 10:42 some time and said, "Remember this, because 10:46 I want to have some special time." 10:48 Now that doesn't mean we don't worship God all week long. 10:50 It doesn't mean that we don't give our hearts to Him. 10:53 But listen, if you don't take some special time 10:56 with your spouse, or take some special time with your children, 10:59 you don't have the time to build that relationship 11:02 that you want them to have. 11:04 Well, some people say, "Well, you know the Sabbath 11:06 was just given to the Jews." 11:07 Really? Adam and Eve are the father and mother of all of us. 11:11 How could anybody ever come to the conclusion 11:13 that it was just given to the Jews? 11:16 Well why is God so specific 11:19 about the Sabbath being the seventh day? 11:22 Does it really matter which day I keep? 11:25 No, not really. Unless.. 11:30 Unless it matters that God sanctifies something. 11:35 If that matters, then the Sabbath matters. 11:39 No it doesn't matter, unless the Ten Commandments matter. 11:44 And if the Ten Commandments matter, the Sabbath matters. 11:50 Some people say, "Well, what about those, 11:52 aren't there some sanctuary Sabbaths?" 11:54 Yes, there were, but they were different. 11:56 They were given after sin. 11:58 They were given with the institution of the Sanctuary. 12:01 And they could fall on any day of the week. 12:05 And we don't celebrate those anymore. 12:07 Just like we don't take a lamb and offer a lamb. 12:09 Because we have the real Lamb of God. 12:11 We have the real Sanctuary in heaven. 12:14 And the Ten Commandments simply reflect the ark of the covenant 12:18 that is in heaven. 12:21 So God has an appeal to all of us about the Sabbath. 12:26 Now we might say, "Which day is the Sabbath?" 12:29 Well Jesus died on Friday, 12:34 He rested in the tomb on Sabbath, 12:36 was resurrected on Sunday. 12:38 So the Sabbath is what we call Saturday. 12:41 The seventh day of the week is what we call Saturday today. 12:44 Now that might be new to some people, 12:46 and they may say, "Well, I don't know." 12:49 But just trust the Lord. 12:51 Why don't you just trust Him? 12:53 He's the Creator. 12:54 Yes, it may mean that you may be odd, 12:56 you may be running upstream, 12:58 may be going to church on a different day. 13:00 But at the end of the day, what is it that you want? 13:02 Don't you want to walk with Jesus? 13:04 Don't you want to do what He wants you to do? 13:06 He loves you. 13:07 He's not going to tell you something or give you something 13:09 that's going to hurt you. 13:11 No, Jesus got it right when He said 13:13 the Sabbath was given to man as a gift. 13:15 It's a wonderful gift. 13:17 A gift that will bless you, and help you, 13:20 and draw you closer to a God who really loves you. |
Revised 2019-08-13