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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

Reflections on the Seventh-day Sabbath

David Shin

Reflections on the Seventh-day Sabbath - Part 1

Reflections on the Seventh-day Sabbath - Part 2

Let us bow our heads together as we pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this holy Sabbath that you've given us, this time that we can come apart from the cares of this life and worship you in Spirit and in truth.

We pray that as we pause for a few moments in time to reflect on Your goodness towards us, to reflect on this time that You've given to us every 7 days, to think about our Creator and Redeemer.

We pray that You would speak to us, for we ask these things in the precious name of Jesus.

I invite you to open your Bibles to the last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 7.

After these things, I saw 4 angels standing on the 4 corners of the earth, holding the 4 winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree.

The imagery that you see in Revelation 7, verse 1, is 4 angels that are holding back the 4 winds.

I believe that some of those winds are sweeping out.

When you look at the context of Revelation, when those winds are loosed, the final events will rapidly come, and the second coming of Jesus is around the corner.

So the scene is that there are angels under the instruction of God that are holding these 4 winds back and then there's another angel, a fifth angel that comes in verse 2 and says, "'Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the 4 angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying, do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their forehead." There's a lot that we can talk about in this verse, But the point that I want to really hone in on is this idea that God is holding back the winds, the final events, the second coming of Jesus, until what, according to this verse?

Until the servants of our God are sealed on their foreheads.

In other words, God is not waiting for the beast power or for world events or for a certain political process to take place.

God is not waiting for any of those things.

What Revelation chapter 7 indicates is that God is waiting for who?

God is waiting for the sealing to take place, for the seal of God to be placed on the foreheads of His people.

Now, the book of Revelation is a symbolic book.

This is not a literal mark that an angel from heaven comes down and stamps Jehovah.

I've seen some of these illustrations in our other denominations.

You know, you place Jehovah on the forehead or Yahweh or a different name for God.

This is a symbolic seal that is placed on the forehead.

In the first century, there were these seals that were used.

This is an archeological discovery of a first century seal that was used in ancient times.

And when a document was signed, it was authenticated by a seal.

They would take something like this, put it into wax, and impress it upon the document.

This was the equivalent of an ancient signature.

We talked about the signature of Abraham Lincoln in our children's story.

This was the authentication of a document or a scroll.

After you completed the document, you would place your seal upon it.

We write signatures all the time when we're buying a home or saying that we're gonna pay the credit card amount that we've just swiped and so forth.

Now, when you look in Revelation chapter 22, it's interesting because the Bible says it a different way.

Remember in Revelation chapter 7, it says that the seal of God was placed on the forehead.

In Revelation chapter 22 it says it a different way.

It says, they shall see his face and his what?

So the seal of God and the name of God are synonymous.

It says that the name of God shall be on the forehead.

The forehead is where the character resides, reason, conscience.

This is the prefrontal cortex, the name of God.

Names in the Bible have special significance.

Remember Jacob's name was changed from deceiver, which is Jacob, to Israel.

So this indicates that God's last day people will have the character of love.

The character of God, the transformation that takes place by grace is a part of the process of what we call the sealing.

Last Sabbath we talked about the signature of the Sabbath, the signature of the 7 day Sabbath and let's do a brief review of last Sabbath study.

Let's go to Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 through 3.

We stated that the Sabbath was God's signature in time.

Genesis chapter 2, turn there, first book of the Bible, then the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished and on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.

This is before the Jewish nation was even thought of.

This is at the very beginning of creation.

And we made this observation when you look at it in the Hebrew, and did his work which he had done, which is 7 words in the Hebrew, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done, 7 words in the Hebrew.

And so God blessed the seventh day and hollowed it, 7 words, 7 words, 7 words.

In Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 through 3, You can see the repetition of the seventh day is stated twice or 3 times I should say and we said when you look at the literary structure of Genesis You see that each day is mentioned once you have the first day second day third day fourth day fifth day sixth day but when you come to the seventh day, it says the seventh day, the seventh day, the seventh day.

Now is God saying it 3 times because it's not important?

This is an important repetition that God is making in the literary structure of Genesis.

We also stated that when you look at the entirety of the creation account, when you look in Genesis 1, verse 2, the Bible states that the earth was without form and void.

Without form indicates that it's without shape.

So there was something there when God began to create.

There was some formless, empty entity that God formed and then he filled.

And we looked at this literary structure, this is according to Dr.

He states that in the creative process God during the first 3 days He forms the earth remember it was without form and void it was shapeless and then empty first 3 days He forms the earth and then the next 3 days 4 5 and 6 He fills the earth first 3 days on day 1 He divided the light from it was a light division from the day to the night and the forming, when you define something, there's a separation that's involved there.

On day 2, he divides the water from the sky.

And on day 3, he divides the earth and the land.

Day 4, he proceeds to fill the heavens, the sun and the moon.

On day 5, he fills the water and the sky with the fish and the birds.

On day 6, he fills the land with animals and man and woman.

The creative process is a unique 1 of forming and filling, and according to Dr.

Miscala, on day 7, this is very unique because on day 7, It's the only day that has both forming and filling within it.

All the other days had 1 of those creative processes, but on the seventh day, he forms the Sabbath.

In other words, he separates it from the other ones.

The word sanctified literally means to set apart for holy use.

So he forms the Sabbath and then he fills the Sabbath.

The seventh day is the only day in which the creative process and forming process come together in 1 day.

He sets it apart for holy use and then fills the Sabbath with His holiness.

We right now are living and experiencing holy time.

God put his holiness into time, And we are experiencing that right now, like a holy wave every seventh day.

Wherever you are in the world, that holiness that is infused with the presence of God, infused with His holiness, comes over us like a holy wave, and we are in it right now.

And we can participate in the holiness of God during this 24-hour period.

Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.

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Series

Reflections on the Seventh-day Sabbath

Reflections on the Seventh-day Sabbath - Part 2

Transcript

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