Building on the Foundation

Over the decades that many of us have been Sabbath-keepers, we've observed many a debate about whether or not it's acceptable to dine in restaurants on the Sabbath. Is eating out on the Sabbath keeping the Sabbath day holy, or is it actually breaking the Sabbath? Today, because this is a Sabbath, I'd like to examine this issue with you. Let's turn first to  Amos 8:5, where the prophet condemned the wicked of Israel who said, "When will the New Moon be past, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat?" Though Amos was making a different point, the passage reveals that everyone, even the wicked, knew that conducting commerce on the Sabbath was forbidden. So, as the context reveals, the wicked yearned for the end of the Sabbath, so that they could go back to cheating and defrauding their fellow man. Nevertheless, we can learn from this that doing business and conducting commerce on the Sabbath is against God's law. Does eating out on the...

Why don't you work on Saturday? Why don't you celebrate Christmas, Easter or Halloween and what about birthdays? Why don't you eat pork? Why don't your kids go to public school and why don't they play video games? Why do you dress that way? Why don't you listen to rock music or watch TV? These are just a few questions that our family has been asked by those in the world, who think we are strange. To sum it up, one question could be asked: "Why do you not partake in worldly pleasures and cares?" The answer is, because we are set apart to be a peculiar people. "For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth" ( Deuteronomy 14:2, KJV). We are to be different from the world because we have been chosen by the Most High. "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priest hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people...

Have you ever wondered what will become of Satan the Devil? The one who deceives the whole world (Rev. 12:9), who accuses God's people continually (Rev. 12:10)? Will God destroy him outright, or confine him to eternal torture in the lake of fire? Will there be any place for him after God creates the new heavens and new earth? Rev. 20:10 seems to indicate that Satan will live forever in the lake of fire: "The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." Is this it? Or is there more to the story? Mat. 25:41 tells us that "everlasting fire" has been prepared for the devil and his angels. Similarly, a few verses later, in v. 46, Jesus warned the wicked of everlasting punishment. Yet we're told that the unrepentant wicked will not be tortured forever, but will in fact be destroyed forever: "'For behold, the day is coming, burni...

God's Word tells us more about Passover than any other commanded observance, save only the weekly Sabbath. You'll find passages relevant to Passover throughout the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. This is because Passover represents the single most important event in all of human history: the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Yeshua the Messiah. He is our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7) "slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Passover is all about "Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). It always has been and always will be! We find a particularly instructive Passover passage in Deut. 16. Here's Deut. 16:1-8: 1 "Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 "Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the LORD your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to put His name. 3 "You shall eat no leavened...

As mentioned previously , Moses used the phrase “between the two evenings” eleven times in the first five books of God’s Word, but not always in reference to Passover. It was also the appointed time for the daily offerings and other services in the tabernacle/temple. In this post, we'll see that God's Word really pinpoints "between the two evenings" for us. As always, please don't just take my word  — or the word of any other human being  — for it, but search these things out for yourself in God's Word. In Ex. 29:38-39, we find: “Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs of the first year, day by day continually. One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight [between the two evenings].” Num. 28:4-8 mirrors this account, including the specification that the evening sacrifice be offered “between the two evenings.” “One” lamb was to be offered in the morning. “One” is echad (Strong’s #259) in both Ex. ...

As several posts have now demonstrated, “evening” in the Bible often means the end of the day. What about “between the two evenings”? The Bible uses this phrase (in Hebrew) eleven times, all in the five books of Moses. It’s used to pinpoint the Passover sacrifice in Ex. 12:6; Lev. 23:5; and Num. 9:3, 5, and 11. Does God’s Word define this phrase for us? Does it mention two distinct evenings and tell us when they are? Indeed it does! When Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish, the Bible documented two distinct evenings. First, in Mat. 14:15, we read, “When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.’” The phrase “the hour is already late” is rendered “the time is now past” in the KJV, but they mean the same thing. The disciples were simply reminding their Master that it was getting late. Remember, a day had twelve hours...

Judges 19 recounts an event that I've never liked reading, and I'm sure many others can say the same. Nevertheless, Judges 19:8-9 helps to define the meaning of evening for us. Here's the passage, as it's translated in the New King James Version: "Then he arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart, but the young woman’s father said, 'Please refresh your heart.' So they delayed until afternoon ; and both of them ate. And when the man stood to depart — he and his concubine and his servant — his father-in-law, the young woman’s father, said to him, 'Look, the day is now drawing toward evening ; please spend the night. See, the day is coming to an end ; lodge here, that your heart may be merry. Tomorrow go your way early, so that you may get home.'" I've highlighted the three phrases I want to focus on in this post. These phrases, as rendered in the NKJV, fall into the category of interpretation rather than literal translation. Now, ...

Hope is one of the greatest gifts God gives to us as humans. Without it, we would lead meaningless existences with nothing to look forward to. With it, we have every reason to keep on going. God has a plan for all of us, both as individuals and as a whole. For this life and the next. He reveals that plan to us partly to give us hope, as it says in Jeremiah 29:11,  ‘“ For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” ’  Our hope in a future is what makes us carry on day after day. Not just any future either, a future living with Christ in the kingdom of God. We live in a world designed by Satan to kill hope. I don’t mean the natural world; I am talking about the human world: the media, Hollywood, our governments, the books, and the music. Satan does everything he can to make it seem like this life is hopeless. We have a hope within us, though! We are temples of the holy spirit, and neither life ...

As we humans are flawed and subject to holding incorrect beliefs or opinions at times, where do we draw the line in the sand with regards to our lifestyle and morality? At what point must we say, “This far and no farther?” It is not good to be stubborn while in error, but I doubt any of us would consider our own beliefs to be in error. Being resolute for the truth is a good thing, but as stated before, we are all subject to being wrong sometimes. The best thing we as individuals can do is to refuse to compromise what we believe to be the truth. This is not saying that we should be set in our ways and unwilling to change anything, (like the church of Laodicea), but that we should cling fiercely to a belief so long as we are fully convinced in our own mind that it is the truth.  We who consider ourselves servants of the Almighty are still going to have differences of belief from each other in some areas, because though we are on the same road to the kingdom, we are not necessarily at...

In recent years, some people have questioned the Bible’s completeness. They claim the modern English Bible of 66 books is incomplete, and that it ought to contain many other books as well, such as the book of Enoch, the book of Jasher, the book of Jubilees, and even other gospels and epistles in the New Testament. They assert that human beings, of their own accord and without God’s direction, chose to slash and burn those other books out of the Bible. In this post, I won’t argue about the truth of the Bible itself or any of its 66 books. Any discussion of that is a topic for another day. Today, I’m going to assume you already know and accept that the Bible is God’s inspired Word, and work from there. When wondering whether books of inspired Scripture have been slashed and burned out of the Bible, let’s ask ourselves this: Would God allow puny humans to thwart His purpose? To mutilate His inspired Word and chop vital sections out of it? Let’s consider that God used the Jews, often uncon...