Revelation’s Eternal Sign
In early 1991, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite sent back information to Earth that caused a sensation in scientific circles. This satellite had been hurled into space to peer into the depths of the universe.
But what it eventually produced was far more than pictures and measurements of distant stars. In effect, it sent us snapshots from the distant past, from what appeared to be the origin of the universe. And there we could make out the telltale sign of the Creator’s fingerprints. Someone was there. Someone was there when it all began.
Astronomers, astrophysicists, cosmologists. These are not the sort of people you see jumping up and down with excitement too often. They usually spend their time in research centers going over bits of data that seem unintelligible to the rest of us. But something made them jump in April, 1992. Something really got their attention.
Stephen Hawking called it, “The discovery of the century.”
Another scientist exclaimed, “It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in my life as a cosmologist.”
Another said, “They have found the Holy Grail of cosmology.”
What was all the fuss about? Information coming back from the COBE satellite provided a final, critical piece in the puzzle of the origin of the universe. What the COBE satellite really did was to prove that the universe did indeed have a beginning. It came as close to proving this as is humanly possible.
Now, let me explain why this is important, and why this shook the scientific community. Let’s say that your picture of the universe leaves no room for God. Let’s say that, for whatever reasons, you simply can’t believe that there is a personal Creator behind it all.
But what’s the starting point? There has been only one answer to that question. It may not really be an answer, but it’s the best people can do when they take God out of the picture. What they say is simply that the universe has always been there. It’s eternal. Matter has always been there. That’s the usual starting point.
When you get down to the basic question of origins, there aren’t that many alternatives. You either start with God or you start with matter. You start with a God who is eternal, outside of time, who can create the complexity around us. Or you start with matter always being there, and slowly evolving into more and more complex things.
But, if the universe hasn’t always been there, it had to have a beginning. Well, that pretty much narrows down the alternatives to one.
How did the COBE satellite fill in the picture of how it all began? How did it produce the final piece of the puzzle?
First, it measured temperatures in different parts of the universe. This provided a picture of how the universe is radiating or dissipating energy in the form of heat. It’s known as the “microwave background radiation temperature.” COBE indicated it to be very low and smooth—no big irregularities in temperature. This confirms the model of the universe beginning at one specific moment in time and radiating smoothly thereafter.
COBE also took measurements related to something called “exotic matter.” It provided information about the proportion of exotic matter to ordinary matter in the universe.
According to Dr. Hugh Ross, author of The Creator and the Cosmos, the measured proportion exactly fit the proportion you would expect—if the universe had a beginning. That’s what the COBE satellite told us. The Hubble Space Telescope also helped fill in the picture. It made measurements that confirmed this proportion of ordinary matter and exotic matter.
That’s what caused the big stir. As one Berkeley astronomer put it: “What we have found is evidence of the birth of the universe . . . It’s like looking at God.”
Recent scientific data points in the direction of a Creator God. In the Bible’s last book, Revelation, God is on center stage as Creator of the universe. Come with me to an amazing scene in the throne room of the universe.Read Rev.4:1.
For John a door suddenly stood open in heaven! A voice called; ringing out like a trumpet. The man heard the words, “Come up here,” and he was invited into a very special place.
He walked through that door and found himself standing in front of a glorious throne. It rested on what appeared to be a sea of glass. Then he noticed a Being seated on that throne. He was so dazzling it seemed like a whole rainbow of colors spilled out from Him. It seemed like brilliant jasper and sardius and emeralds flashed in the light. Twenty-four officials in white robes were seated around that throne, each with a gold crown on his head. Four other living creatures declared ceaselessly, “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is to come” (Revelation 4:8)!
This was a scene of joyful worship—a picture of heavenly beings lost in worship. Immediately after those living creatures gave glory and honor to God, the twenty-four elders fell down before Him, tossed their crowns at the foot of the throne, and declared:
“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11).
What I’ve just described was an unforgettable scene which the apostle John actually saw in vision. John, the author of the book of Revelation, walked through that open door and into God’s throne room. He described this scene early in the book of Revelation because he wanted us to know that God is at the center of this book. And He is indeed an awesome God, a glorious God and worthy of praise. Why? Because He created all things. All things exist by His will.
This Creator makes another dramatic entrance a few chapters later in chapter 7. That’s where John sees a great multitude standing before the throne of God, waving palm branches and crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne.” And those elders are still worshipping. They fall on their faces and declare:
“Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 7:12).
God is the mighty God—the all-powerful God—the Creator. In chapter ten we find an angel making a solemn declaration to John:
[He swears by] “Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it” (Revelation 10:6).
Revelation 14 gives us God’s last warning message to earth. Three angels fly down to earth to share the everlasting gospel in a special, urgent way. And this is what the first one declares:
“Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (Revelation 14:7).
Scene after scene in the book of Revelation, picture after picture, shows God as the all-powerful Creator. God is not some vague shadowy essence on a distant galaxy. He is not some abstract symbol. The book of Revelation provides an incredible picture of God, the one who made heaven, earth, sea and sky, plant and flowers. He is the Father of all humanity. We are more than a biological accident. We are His creation!
But you know what? Most people have lost sight of that today. People on this planet have been cut-off from this Creator God. He has shrunk in size, shrunk in power. He is no longer worthy of our heart-felt praise and worship. He’s only worthy of a quick nod heavenward.
Let me tell you about one of the main reasons that has happened.
In 1831 a British ship called The Beagle sailed down the western coast of South America. Its mission—to map this part of the world more accurately. When the ship docked at the Galapagos Islands, the naturalist on board took a keen interest in the animals unique to the islands. He gathered information on a variety of bird species, their different beak shapes, coloring, etc. And his interpretation of that data would change the way most people look at the world.
The naturalist was, of course, Charles Darwin. And his theory—the origin of life by natural selection. His theory shocked Victorian England. A few observations on variation in species had apparently eliminated the need for a Creator. Now we had evolution. Soon God seemed no longer necessary.
But God has an answer to the problem of evolution. It is part of His final message for all people. Revelation calls us to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, sea and the springs of water” (Revelation 14:7).
How do we worship the Creator of heaven and earth? How does He remind us of His creative power?
All of the books of the Bible meet and end in Revelation. We will only understand the significance of the monumental issues in today’s world if we understand the events at creation.
Revelation’s final call for the entire human race to worship the Creator has its origin in Genesis—the book of beginnings. This theme of true worship—remembering the Creator—is a common thread throughout the Bible. It is one of the most important themes of Scripture. The heart of Revelation’s final crisis is over true and false worship. Worshipping the Creator is at the center of it all.
Let’s return to our origin so we can understand our destiny. Let’s return to the book of beginnings, Genesis, so we can understand the book of endings, Revelation.
The amazingly intricate world as we know it today was created in six literal days. Starting with a dark shapeless mass, God dazzled it with light, enveloped it with atmosphere, salted it with seas, brightened it with plants, enlivened it with wild things—day by day looking upon his handiwork and saying, “It’s good!”
And then came the crowning act of creation. Turning to the Father, the Creator said:
“Let Us make man in Our image . . . in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26, 27).
Man could receive no greater honor! God could have shown no greater love! The human race is God’s masterpiece of creation—the object of His supreme love! And this love was meant to be shared, for God said:
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over . . . every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
After the creation of Adam and Eve on the sixth day, the Bible says:
“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished” (Genesis 2:1).
Just six days of work, and creation was done. Such a short time! But not for God! The Bible says:
“For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:9).
Adam and Eve must have gazed in wide-eyed wonder as the blazing sun, in all its glory, began to slip over the western horizon, ending the sixth day of creation. But the Genesis account of creation does not end there. The Bible record continues:
“On the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested” (Genesis 2:2).
God rested! Why? Not because He was weary, for the prophet Isaiah tells us that God never gets weary (Isaiah 40:28). The Creator of the universe permitted Himself the satisfaction of enjoying His completed creation. And then, pleased with His accomplishments over Earth’s first six days, God did something especially significant:
“Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work of creating” (Genesis 2:3).
A Reminder of Our Roots
God blessed the seventh day! He made the seventh day an endless fountain of spiritual refreshing for His people, for all time to come. Next, He sanctified the seventh day! He set it apart as a holy day, a special time every seven days to continually remind us of our beginnings—our roots!
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.
Could it be that God, looking down through the centuries, saw that mankind would forget their roots? Could it be that God perceived the great gulf that sin would create as it broke communion between creatures and Creator, well-nigh obliterating the truth of man’s divine creation?
Bible history reveals the sad truth that by the time of Moses, God’s people, who were in Egyptian bondage, had forgotten their roots and God’s special day of fellowship. But God had a plan to remind His people of His special day. As Moses led the Israelites from Egypt to Palestine, the promised land, food rations ran out in the Sinai wilderness. Here, God miraculously provided bread from heaven, called “manna,” for forty years.
But the story is about more than receiving a daily bread supply for forty years! The manna appeared on the ground only six days a week—Sunday through Friday! But on Friday, the sixth day, the Israelites were instructed to gather up enough manna for the seventh day! The manna never fell on the seventh day, and if extra was gathered in advance on any day other than the sixth, it would spoil.
Why? God wanted His people to know that the One who had led them out of Egypt was also their Creator. God wanted to point His creatures back to their creation. Signifying the importance of the seventh day through the way He supplied the manna, God wanted His people to know that His day was very special—that it had in no way faded in significance with the passing of time.
God linked the manna experience with the Sabbath:
“Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, there will be none” (Exodus 16:26).
Some of the people, refusing to follow God’s advice to gather an extra portion on the sixth day, went out on the Sabbath to gather manna. But they did not find any. And our patient Lord asked:
“How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws” (Exodus 16:28)?
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible speaks with one voice regarding the importance of the seventh day, the weekly Sabbath. Several weeks after the beginning of the manna experience, God again came close to men and women when He etched on tablets of stone, with His own finger, the great truths He had spoken in the Garden of Eden.
The Israelites were emphatically reminded of how God felt about the seventh day—the Sabbath—when Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying God’s handwritten message:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, 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 20:8-10, KJV).
In these immortal words, God asks men and women to remember the weekly memorial of creation—the seventh-day Sabbath. And He promises His people many blessings in connection with this special day:
“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord” (Isaiah 58:13,14).
The High Cost of Forgetting
Had men and women always remembered this memorial of God’s creation, the problems so prevalent today—lack of meaning in life, identity crises, loss of self-worth—would never have arisen. There would be no evolutionists, no skeptics, no agnostics!
Nowhere in the Bible is the Sabbath called “The Sabbath of the Jews.” Jesus made it clear that it was a day for all mankind when He said:
“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
Jesus also said that He is:
“Lord even of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8).
The Sabbath is more than a memorial of creation. It is a weekly reminder of the profound relationship between God and man, an acknowledgment of God’s divinity:
“That you may know that I am the Lord your God” (Ezekiel 20:20).
The creative power used in sanctifying the Sabbath is the same power God uses today in sanctifying sinful men and women. That promise means that our Creator is also our Savior:
“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” (Ezekiel 20:12).
To observe the Sabbath is to recognize and receive God’s creative, sanctifying power in our lives today.
Throughout the New Testament we find that our friendly example, Jesus Christ, did not forget this special memorial of creation while He was on this earth. Luke tells us:
“So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read” (Luke 4:16).
Jesus’ custom, then, was to go to the synagogue on Sabbath. But, you might ask, which day is the Sabbath? How can we be certain on which day Jesus worshipped? How do we know that somewhere between the time of Moses and Jesus, God might have changed the day?
Think about it for a moment. If the day had been changed or forgotten between Adam’s time and Moses’ time, God would have rectified it when He wrote the Ten Commandments at Sinai. If the Sabbath day had been lost between Moses’ time and Jesus’ time, Christ would surely have set the record straight.
If God were to make such a major change involving one of His finger-etched commandments, surely somewhere in the Bible we could find a record of it! The issue of which day was the Sabbath never arose while Jesus was on Earth. The only controversy arose over how He kept it.
Piling on the Rules
Ever since their return from captivity in Babylon, Jewish leaders were determined that never again would their nation forget their Lord or the importance of the weekly Sabbath. In this dedication to “remembering” the Sabbath day to “keep it holy,” Jewish leaders, in spite of their good intentions, made the Sabbath a cruel burden. They distorted Sabbath observance by heaping upon it austere, cumbersome regulations. For example, they would not allow a man to spit on the Sabbath, for fear he would irrigate the grass! A man could not travel more than a certain number of miles from his home on the Sabbath. If he had plans to do so, he could travel part way the day before and leave some token—a handkerchief, a piece of cloth—to set up a temporary “home” and thus justify the additional miles.
Jesus tried to eliminate such meaningless man-made requirements and show the true beauty and significance of Sabbath observance. When He was accused of breaking the Sabbath because He healed people on that day, He answered:
“It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:12).
As we look at Calvary, the true meaning of Sabbath observance is demonstrated by the devoted followers of Jesus. On Friday, the day before the Sabbath, the disciples’ hopes in Jesus had been crushed. They witnessed Him dying a cruel death on the cross. Their dreams and hopes lay in a darkened tomb. As a last act of devotion, they wanted to anoint His dead body. But first they paused to give honor and glory to God during the Sabbath hours.
Under the shadow of the world’s greatest crisis, Jesus’ friends rested according to God’s command. Note carefully the sequence of events in these texts:
“That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared” (Luke 23:54-24:1).
Let us review the order of events. On the Preparation Day (now called Friday), Jesus died, and the women prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath day (now called Saturday), the women rested according to the commandment (the fourth commandment), and Jesus rested in the tomb. On the first day of the week (now called Sunday), the women came to anoint Jesus, but found the tomb empty because Christ had risen!
Here three consecutive days are mentioned in the Bible. The Preparation Day, or Good Friday; the first day of the week, or Easter Sunday; and the day in between, or Saturday, which the Bible calls the Sabbath.
The closer we get to the cross today, the more we realize that just any day in seven will not do! To tamper with the Sabbath is to tamper with creation, Sinai, and Calvary itself!
Our Creator asks us to “remember!” Yet so many have forgotten! This blurring of God’s special memorial also blurs our relationship with our Creator.
Jesus expected that Christians would keep the Sabbath for all time. Note His words of instruction given on an earlier occasion, referring to events yet to come to the Jewish people after He had departed:
“And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath” (Matthew 24:20).
Jesus expected that about forty years after His death, when Jerusalem was destroyed, Christians would still be keeping the Sabbath.
The New Testament reveals that Jesus’ followers did keep the Sabbath after the resurrection. In fact, the book of Acts records eighty-four meetings that Paul held on the Sabbath. For example:
“They came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:1, 2).
On another occasion, as Paul preached in the synagogue, a group of visitors approached him and requested that he speak the following Sabbath:
“The Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath . . . And the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God” (Acts 13:42, 44).
A Golden Thread
The Sabbath runs like a golden thread from Genesis to Revelation. The book of Revelation describes those who are prepared to meet Jesus when He comes:
“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12).
And one of those commandments tells us to “remember” the Sabbath day—a sign between God and man forever!
This Biblical truth about the Sabbath may be new to you. You may never have realized before that God’s Sabbath is for all mankind.
But we all have an appointment with God each Sabbath day, every week. Established at creation, given in the heart of the Ten Commandments, kept by Jesus, and honored by the disciples, the Sabbath is God’s sign of eternal loyalty. He personally invites you to experience the rewards of Sabbath-keeping.
The Sabbath provides rich opportunities for spiritual renewal, physical rejuvenation, and mental relaxation. It Is God’s own treasure. It is a precious, priceless gift which He has given to us.
Not long ago I visited the beautiful island of Cuba. I well remember walking down the cobblestone path past the ramparts of Moreau Castle. Moreau Castle was built from 1589 to 1630 to serve as a fortress to guard Havana Harbor.
Treasure fleets from all over the Americas gathered there before setting sail to Spain, laden with vast treasures.
These treasure ships sailed for two centuries from Mareau Castle in 70 flotillas at a time, carrying emeralds from Columbia and glittering silver from Bolivia, as well as Inca treasures from Peru and gold from the Aztecs. Some of them made it to Spain. Others did not.
In 1662, the Nuestra Senora de Atoche, the 550-ton flagship of the Spanish fleet, laden with treasurers of gold for Spain, sank in a hurricane off the Cuban Coast.
The vessel had sunk, its treasure lost and neglected for centuries. Century after century passed by. Some explorers tried to find it through the centuries, but nobody really knew the precise spot where the Senora de Atoche went down.
Then in 1985, on speculation, a diving company gathered some investors who invested a few thousand dollars in the expedition. They thought by examining ancient Spanish records they might know where the Atoche went down. And so they began plumbing the depths.
Then to their surprise, they discovered precisely where the sailing ship went down. As they began to bring up the treasures, they discovered far more than they imagined possible. Far more than they ever dreamed could be true.
Marvelous treasures of gold, in fact 47 tons, were brought up out of the ocean valued at 400 million dollars.
What a treasure! A treasure that was neglected. A treasure hidden for centuries, but a treasure that was so near. Some people who had invested just a few thousand dollars ended up as millionaires.
Could it be that in your life a treasure is very near, a treasure that’s been hidden, or a treasure that’s been neglected?
In this age of evolution, at a time of stress and tension, with nerves jangling, God is calling us to discover the hidden treasure of the Sabbath. You can find a new peace, joy and meaning in your life as you open your heart to follow Him.
Tell Him today, “Jesus, thank you for your wonderful gift of the Sabbath. Jesus, you set the example, and I want to follow you.”
