Understanding THE ARK OF THE COVENANT
The interesting thing about the covenants God gives us is that as Creator and giver of life, He knows what works best for us. For example: He gave us the covenant of marriage because He knows that it works better than divorce or simply living together. He didn’t ask us what is best because He knows what is best. Likewise, God chiseled with His finger, stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments. They represent orders or commandments that we are to comply with and they align with Creation and our relationship with Him. Our choice is to please Him in obedience—or to make our own rules and live outside His Covenant.
The thing we can be sure of is that Satan, the enemy of God, must—because of his nature, pervert, destroy, and imitate the created thing. That’s the best he can do since he cannot create anything.
The purpose of this essay is to expose his fraudulent device; rendering us deceived, weakened, and disobedient. Nearly; the entire family of God, has accepted the change to the fourth commandment to rest and keep holy, the last day of the week (Saturday) yet, for centuries we are told by religious leaders that Sunday instead, is the Sabbath.
One thing that is consistent with God’s Way is the use of seven, or half of seven, or seven times seven, but however you find it—seven is completion and sanctity. Every seventh wave that washes ashore is much larger than the previous six and it washes the shore clean. The seven seas, the seven day march around Jericho, seven trumpets, the seven days of our week, the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven-thousand years from Eden to The Great White Throne of Judgment—the number seven rules our lives in so many ways.
In this short message, we can’t communicate the weight and value found in the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses after he waited in a cloud for seven days (Exodus 24). He then commanded Moses to build an ark to house His commandments which were written on stone tablets. The ark that Moses built is preserved unto that final day and presented (Rev. 11:19) at the Second-Coming of Christ. Its design resembles the Throne of God, both having cherubim on each side.
You can study how man’s religions justify a Sunday Sabbath and the proofs they use, but no matter how flimsy they are, they seem strong enough to deceive their followers. If God changed the fourth commandment, did He then come down, open up the ark and rewrite that which He wrote in stone? If you go to Israel today and plan to ride a bus, taxi, or elevator on Saturday, you’ll find them shut down because of Sabbath. It was Rome who made the change some 300 years after Christ and it was done to accommodate those Baal worshipers who worshiped the sun god on Sunday. I believe we can go to church on Sunday, Wednesday or whenever, but the Saturday Sabbath is for rest and to keep holy. It’s not just what I think, but what Jesus claims, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” John 14:21 Read further the value that God put in the ark as symbolic of His Testimony and Power—it doesn’t seem to be anything we would want to challenge or change so callously, or disrespectfully. (Exodus 24:12, James 2:10).
Tom Buttram, tombuttram@gmail.com
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