Anyway, this post is actually an email that I am sending to respond to a question that was asked on the http://www.HeDiedForMe.comwebsite. It is a site that was originally designed to be a follow up to tracts that we handed outside of movie theaters during the movie, the Passion of the Christ. The site has a form that poeple can fill out to ask questions, and then we do our best to answer them. Anyway, for my "Smoke-Break Thought" of the day (No, I don't really smoke, but I should get the same amount of time, right!?) I post the response:
You have asked a couple of so very important questions. Hopefully I can do the answers justice for you. Your questions had somewhat of a progression to them, and I'd like to answer them using the same progression. You asked two questions, but I divided the first one into two: 1) How do we know that God is real? 2) How do we know that the Bible is the inspired word of God and 3) Which day is the true Sabbath day?
The first question to ask, How do we know that God is real? There are a few different ways to answer this question, but the one that has the strongest evidence to me is that of Creation. The world we live in, the life that we have must have come from somewhere. People have come up with this Theory (I emphasize the word Theory) of evolution that ultimately teaches that Something (this universe) came from Nothing. I cannot believe that. Darwin himself wrote that if evolution were true, that in time we would find innumerable transitional fossils. However, there has not been found even One single one of these transitional fossils that Darwin said there must be for evolution to be true. There are a ton of other scientific proofs for Creation and of the fallacy of evolution found at www.AnswersInGenesis.org if you want to learn more. But, my point is that if evolution is false, and we can see so much evidence of a Design in this universe, it must be there is a Designer. That Designer is God, and since God created us, we should consider whether or not He wants anything of us.
That leads to the second questions of, How do we know that the Bible is the inspired word of God? Well, our website has an article written about how we can know that the Bible is True and Trustworthy (at http://www.hediedforme.com/questions.asp?QuestionID=9 ). Like the first question, there are a few different ways to answer this question, but the easiest way for me to explain it would be to see scientific facts found in the Bible that nobody on the earth could have known about when the Bible was written. For example, in the book of Isaiah, written some 700 years B.C., he speaks of the earth by calling it the "circle of the earth." The notion of a round earth was not popularized or confirmed by scientists for many, many centuries later. However, Isaiah claimed to be rehearsing the words of God Himself when he wrote that. Nobody at that time could have wrote so definitively on the subject, unless it had supernatural or divine origins. On top of science, there are so many prophecies that were written hundreds of years earlier than they were fulfilled. Archaeological finds have all confirmed the Bible to be true and accurate. If you would like to do some longer reading on the subject, there is a book available in electronic edition at: http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Inspiration/inspiration.htm that really dives deep into the subject.
After we know there's a God and believe that He has communicated to us through His word, the Bible, then we can move on to answer the third question, Which day is the true Sabbath day? There are a couple of different uses for that word Sabbath in the Bible. Sometimes referring to special feast days of the children of Israel, but most often in the Bible it refers to the 7th day of the week. This in remembrance of the day that God rested from His work of creation which can be found in Genesis 2:1-3. The Sabbath was established as a day of rest. Some 2500 years later, when Moses was given the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath was instituted as part of the covenant God made with the children of Israel, again in remembrance of His creation. This 7th day of the week is what we call Saturday. When we come to the New Testament, however, we find a new covenant, a new testament established for believers in Jesus Christ. They were not given the same command to rest on the 7th day, but rather they were told to find their rest, their Sabbath (Hebrews 4:1-11) in the work that Jesus Christ had done for them on the Cross, when He bore their sins in His own body. What I mean is that a Christian's rest is found in the word that Jesus Christ did. There is nothing that we can do to earn our own salvation, but we must put our faith, our trust, in His work on the Cross and repent of our sin that put Him there. Now, there is a principle in the 7th day of rest that we can learn from. Jesus tells us that the Sabbath was made for man, and it is not that the man was made for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). So it is profitable for human beings to take one day a week to rest, and what a great opportunity to take that day to really focus on the God that gave us life while we are taking that time to rest and meditate. I believe that is why the principle of going to church on Sundays really came from. Some in Christianity will teach that Sunday is the Sabbath day, however, since the Bible is our final authority and I don't see where the Bible says that, I do not hold it to be true. Sunday is the day that we can celebrate Jesus having resurrected from the dead which is what changed everything! Christians are told not to forsake the assembling together (Hebrews 10:25), so going to church is important. But Paul says in Romans 14:5 that we do not have to value one day higher than another. That is not Sunday or Saturday should we worship God more than the other. We are to be worshipping God all of the time, ascribing to Him worth that He is due.
I hope this answers your questions a little bit. If I have failed to address the specific point you have, please feel free to respond to this email for more clarification.
To the praise of the glory of His grace,
Andy@HeDiedForMe.com
2 comments:
Great post Hindsey. We should get together sometime. We only have five more years to get together and then I am gone. Thanks for lunch!
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