God's Original Plan

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.” Gen 2:2-3 God created this world in seven literal days, and He set aside the seventh day as a blessed, sanctified day to rest from our labors and to spend that time with Him. God created miraculous things on each of the days of creation, but on the seventh day, He created just one thing, the Sabbath. Did you know the Sabbath was instituted at creation? Did you know that one of God’s commandments is a reminder to keep the Sabbath, as a sign that you are worshipping the Creator? “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11 “I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” Ezekiel 20:19-20 There are many object lessons that we can study from the creation story, but the one I would like to focus on for this study, is the prophecy contained in it. God labored for six days and then rested on the seventh. He set aside that day as blessed, as holy, as sanctified. It was a special day to rest from all our labors and spend that time with him. Why did God spend six days working, and sanctify the seventh day? Don’t you think He had a specific purpose in choosing that time period for creation? Did you know that in Revelation it states that we will spend 1000 years with God in Heaven? That we will have a 1000 year period of rest from our labors and spend that time in direct communion with God? “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4 Here we see that when God’s people are delivered from this earth, we will spend 1000 years with Him in Heaven. Interestingly, for God one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” 2 Peter 3:8 So to put this together, God illustrated for us in Creation six days of work, and one day in which we would have a sanctified rest with Him. And furthermore, one day is as a thousand years. Will we go through 6000 years of struggle on this earth before spending the seventh thousand year (the Sabbath) resting with God in Heaven? I believe the time period God used at Creation is a prophecy regarding how long we would need to labor on this sinful world before spending a special day with God in Heaven, resting from all the labors of this world. Then after that seventh day, the day of rest, God will make all things new. To put it simply, God has allotted 6000 years for the probation of mankind in which we are laboring in this world, and we will spend 1000 years, the seventh millennium, the Sabbath millennium, with God in Heaven. Let’s look at this a little more closely… We know from history that Christ entered the wilderness in 27 AD, to be tempted by Satan. Interestingly, through a careful study of the chronologies of the Bible, it can be shown that this was 4000 years after Adam failed his test in the Garden of Eden. Did this event occur at an arbitrary time, or was Christ fulfilling prophecy? Clearly the period of Christ’s first coming was not randomly selected, it was the time appointed by God. Let’s look at the type that Christ was fulfilling with His first coming.  “Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” Exodus‬ ‭12:3, 5-6 Christ fulfilled the role of the Passover Lamb perfectly! The Passover Lamb was to be selected (on the 10th day) and then four days later (the 14th day), it was to be killed by the congregation of Israel in the evening. Christ was the Lamb of God selected when Adam failed his temptation, at the foundation of the world. The moment Adam needed a substitute, Christ became the lamb. “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭5:7‬‬‬ “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” John‬ ‭1:29‬ ‭KJV‬‬ “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Revelation‬ ‭13:8‬ ‭KJV‬‬ Just as …

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