The following article was republished from the helpful site Everlasting Gospel. It was originally adapted from a sermon by Ivor Myers found entitled The Cross and the Three Angels Messages. The article is published with permission from both sources.
Did you know that our doctrines are so Christ centered that we need not preach them [...]
A while back I wrote a post on “E. J. Waggoner as a Practical Theologian.” In it I quoted Waggoner who stated that “Every doctrine of the Bible is for our practical benefit, and should be studied for that purpose.”
This is a very interesting thought for much of our preaching and thinking. Often we think of “practical” and “doctrinal” as being on two sides with a chasm in between. We cannot go over the chasm. So sometimes we preach “practical” sermons, and sometimes we preach “doctrinal” sermons.
The Sabbath is about celebrating creation and the creative power of God. The Sabbath is the time that we are called to remember what God can do. The Sabbath is about God’s ability to create something out of nothing.
The Second Advent Movement has a two fold reason to emphasize the importance of the creative power of God. The Sabbath and the predicted End Time Revival of Interest. Listen to Pastor Cox present these principles in this audio.
In the last days, Revelation 13 paints the picture of a beast that rises out of the sea and a beast that rises out of the Land. These beasts seek to overtake the people of God by forcing all the world to obey their dictates. The beast that comes out of the Land even causes fire to come down from heaven as it seeks to add divine authority to its dictates. This symbolizes a “false” revival that seems to attempt to replay the test given on the Mount by Elijah that the God who is really God should cause fire to come down from heaven.
I was reading Dr. Bacchiocchi’s book The Sabbath in the New Testament: answers to questions. In the first chapter Dr. Bacchiochi presents three understandings of the Sabbath’s relation to the New Testament which serves as a backdrop for this whole presentation.
We are commanded to remember that God created on the seventh day. (Exodus 20:11) We celebrate God’s ability to make things out of things that do not appear. (Hebrews 11:3). In revelation we are reminded that there will be a movement and a message that celebrates God’s creative power when it has the everlasting Gospel. (Revelation 14:7).
Wayne Muller writes in the book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest:
I heard a Sabbathkeeper argue for a “deeper” understanding of the Sabbath. This is fine and I have argued for the same thing, however a growing number of people are saying that public worship was not a part of Sabbath observance. They argue that the Sabbath was primarily meant to be a one on one “date” between the individual and God and that there was no worship or communal component to the Sabbath.
Jesus Christ is the creator according to John 1:3. We know that the worlds were “framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Jesus created all that we see in the world. And the scripture tells us that the raw materials that Jesus used to create are things that can not be seen. Jesus took that which could not be seen and created all that is seen.
