Sermons - Cornerstone Christian Fellowship

The Beginning and the End - Part Four

Nov 03, 2024 by: John Herbert | Series: The Beginning and the End

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Jn 1:5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

We will continue to see what we can learn about the four days and the three days set in the foundation in Genesis.

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Sunday November 3rd 2024 
The Beginning and the End
Part Four

We had seen last time that God had completed His restoration of the ruined material creation in four, twenty-four-hour days, as recorded in Genesis Chapter 1. Four days of time which have connected the numerical value of four to the process of restoration and also to the earth in a more general sense. And we had also seen, that through the completion of the restoration in four days the complete seven days were divided into two interrelated parts. Consequently, we saw four days and then three days. Four days of restoration, leading to rulership in the third day following.

And if we then go to John’s Gospel, the Gospel which should begin the NT, we will see this same division between four days and three days as we saw in Genesis.

We will remember that John’s Gospel begins in an identical fashion to Genesis, ‘In beginning’. In Genesis we are told that ‘In beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ and in John we are told that it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who is God, who made all things.

And moving on from this opening statement in John, the counting of the days begins in - Jn 1:5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. [1]

The light shining in the darkness in John parallels the light shining from above into the darkness below on Day One in Genesis, both being the first day. And then, as we continue in John, we will find that another three days are then added to the first day – Jn 1:29 The next day [2] John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

‘The next day’, in v29 corresponds to Day Two in Genesis.

Jn 1:35 Again, the next day, [3] John stood with two of his disciples.

V35 then gives us Day Three.

Jn 1:43 The following day [4] Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.”

And here at the end of John Chapter 1 we find the Fourth Day. And each of these four days is clearly delineated, just as they were in Genesis.

And as we come to the beginning of John Chapter 2, we find this – 
Jn 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.

‘On the third day’, that follows on from the fourth day seen in John 1:43, will take us to the Seventh Day. Four days and three days. And the division between the four days and the three days is once again easy for us to see.

The Seventh Day in Genesis takes us to the Millennial Kingdom, and the Seventh Day in John takes us to the same place, the Millennial Kingdom. A Day connected to rulership from the heavens which was being reoffered to the Jewish people at the time that John wrote his Gospel, a reoffer that was authenticated by the first sign recorded in John’s Gospel, that of turning the water into wine, and the seven others which follow.

The Seventh Day in Genesis reveals the foundational picture of Christ and His Wife ruling together from the heavens in the Seventh Day. A picture seen through Adam and the Woman created on the sixth day for rulership in the Seventh Day. And the Seventh Day in John reveals the remarriage of Jehovah to a cleansed and restored Israel, in the antitype of Abraham’s marriage to Keturah after Isaac had taken a wife.

This future restoration of Israel is described for us in – 
Hos 5:13 “When Ephraim saw his sickness, And Judah saw his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria And sent to King Jareb; Yet he cannot cure you, Nor heal you of your wound. 14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, And like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them and go away; I will take them away, and no one shall rescue. 15 I will return again to My place Till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.” 6:1 Come, and let us return to the LORD; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. 2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight.

And once again we see ‘the third day’. According to Hosea the third day follows the two days, the two-thousand years of the Jewish dispensation, including the final seven years of Daniel’s seventieth week. And to this we can also add that this third day must also come after the previous four days, at the end of four thousand years.

And if we continue to think through this division between the four days and the three days, going beyond where we have already been, we will realize that it was at the end of the fourth day from Adam, as the four thousand years were coming to a close, that the Jews were offered the Kingdom of the Heavens – Mt 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And really, at the end of the fourth day, as the four thousand years from Adam were coming to an end, was the only time in which this Kingdom could have been offered to them – Ga 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

We have in past studies looked at ‘the fullness of the time’, and we have seen it in relation to Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks – 
Da 9:25 “Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks…..

And although there is absolutely nothing wrong in doing this, we can now have an even greater appreciation of ‘the fullness of the time’, as we now know that it could only have been at the end of the four days from Adam that things concerning rulership from the heavens could have been introduced in this fashion, just as they were in Genesis.

Remember, that it was only after the restoration of the material creation had been completed in the first four days in Genesis Chapter 1 that events then moved toward Adam and the Woman ruling together over the restored and populated earth, from the heavens on the third day following, which is also the Seventh Day. The way that God has established this order from the beginning means that it can never change – Nu 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Let’s add another piece to this intriguing picture. It was following Israel’s rejection of the Kingdom of the heavens, toward the end of the four days, that God began working for two days with the one new man in Christ, to offer this new man, Christians, the Kingdom of the heavens, so that those who would accept the offer and be found worthy to do so, will rule with Christ from the heavens in the third day following the fourth day, which will also be the Seventh Day from Adam.

Now, we will also remember from Daniel’s seventy weeks prophecy, that no time gap is seen between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth week - Da 9:25………..There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times. 26 “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, [483 years. 7 years short of the full 490 years] but not for Himself; [the remaining 7 years] And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.

And there is no time gap shown between the sixty-nineth and seventieth weeks even though we know that the two days, two-thousand years of this dispensation separates them within linear time. And we have observed in the past that Daniel’s seventy-week prophecy deals only with the Jews, and therefore we should not expect to see a reference to Christians in this context. And because of what we have been studying, we can now have an even greater understanding of why there is no time gap between the sixty-nineth and seventieth week as we view these final seven years from God’s perspective rather than from our own – Zec 12:10 “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. 11 In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; 13 the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; 14 all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

At the completion of the two days of our own dispensation, if we follow the chronological timeline, the Lord will remove all Christians from the earth to His Judgment Seat. And having completed His work with these household servants, He will then turn once again to the Jewish people to complete the final seven years of the two days, two-thousand years of the Jewish dispensation: the final seven years of the four days, four-thousand years from Adam, the final seven years of the six days, six-thousand years of Man’s Day.

And in the light of what we have read in Zechariah, we should now consider exactly when, in terms of time, that God begins dealing with the Jews again. From where we are, we would probably say that God dealing with the Jews again is yet future and comes after the completion of the Christian dispensation. But from God’s perspective, what for us is a ‘future’ return to the Jews will in fact have happened two-thousand years ago, immediately following the end of the sixty-ninth week.

God will start this time at the exact place that He stopped it, ‘after sixty-two weeks, Messiah will be cut off’, He will begin at the time immediately following Christ’s crucifixion in 33AD. At the time before Christ is in the tomb for two days, a time before He is raised on the third day, allowing for both God’s firstborn Sons, Christ and Israel, to be raised together on the third day, On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight. Just as we saw in Hosea.

And as God deals with the Jews once again, we know that the judgments of these final seven years, encapsulated in the account of the ‘four horsemen’, as the first four seals on the seven sealed scroll are opened, will bring about the redemption of the inheritance, the restoration of the ruined material creation for the second time.

And the restoration of the material creation for the second time CAN ONLY be completed at the end of four days, four-thousand years, because this is what has been established in the foundation.

Now, we have also seen in the foundation in Genesis, that following the restoration of the material creation, at the end of the fourth day, there must be another consecutive two days followed by rulership in the third day following. And we also know, that with respect to the Jews, the Lord must remain in the tomb for two days, the two thousand years of our dispensation, which is witnessed through Israel’s continued blindness during this time – 2 Co 3:14 But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.

And all of this seems to give us a problem. The two days of work with the one new man in Christ, the two days when Christ is in the tomb, with respect to the Jews, can ONLY come at the completion of four days, four-thousand years, but within linear time the two-thousand years of this dispensation will have been completed before the previous four days, four-thousand years, will have been finished. What are we to do with this, as God’s established order, four days followed by three days, cannot be changed? Nothing is the answer. This seems to be a problem for us because we are bound by linear time, whereas God works with time entirely differently – Ecc 1:9 That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us.

Ecc 3:14 I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him. 15 That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been; And God requires an account of what is past.

Because we are only able to experience time moving forward in a line it is impossible for us to understand how God can operate outside of this constraint. And in case we may feel a need to complain about that, let’s just remember – Ro 9:20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

And also – Isa 55:8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Suffice it to say at this point, that the material creation will be restored, the inheritance will be redeemed, at the end of the four-thousand years from Adam without interruption, just as it was after four days in Genesis. And again, because God is unconstrained by time, there are two days following the end of the fourth day with rulership in the third day following. This we receive as a matter of faith.

However, when it comes to the restoration of a subsequently ruined creation, Man, God is working in six, one-thousand-year days, as we find in 2 Peter Chapter 3 - 2 Pe 3:7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
 
And these six days, six-thousand-years, for the restoration of Man is a mark of God’s longsuffering toward us, those who are in possession of spiritual life, that from a Christian perspective, we should change our mind from Laodicean thinking to embrace the Word of the Kingdom, so that we would not perish with respect to having life in the Kingdom Age. And for the Jews that they would change their minds to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And it will be at the end of these six days, six-thousand years, that Man, in the form of faithful Christians on the one hand, will have been restored to the image and likeness of God for the purpose of rulership in the Seventh Day from the heavens. And the Jews on the other hand, restored in bodies of flesh, bone and blood, to rule on the earth.

And this had been established in the first Chapter of Genesis, as it is on the sixth day that Adam and the Woman are seen in the image and likeness of God for the purpose of rulership in the Seventh Day providing the foundational type – Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion………… 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

So then, we have the number six inseparably connected to the restoration of Man, and the number four inseparably connected to the restoration of the material creation, the earth.

And just to remind ourselves once again, when it comes to the restoration of the material creation put under a curse in Genesis Chapter 3, the future restoration during the final seven years of Man’s Day, the Tribulation and the seventy-five days which follow, the number four is seen again in conjunction with the number seven.

We had seen the seven sealed scroll that contains the terms of the redemption of the inheritance being opened at the beginning of Revelation Chapter 6. And that seen through the opening of the first four seals on the scroll, through the actions of a rider on four different horses, gives a complete overview of the redemption of the inheritance. The final three seals on the scroll providing commentary on that seen through the opening of the first four seals.

So then, just as Genesis 2:4 – Malachi 4:6 provides commentary on that which is set out within the seven-day structure in Genesis 1:1-2:3, so we find that Revelation 6:9 – 19:21 provides the commentary on the overview given in Revelation 6:1-8, the four seals and the seven seals that parallel the seven days in Genesis.

All we have to do is to read the Scriptures with the understanding of these things.

We have seen this morning then, that the material creation under a curse is restored at the end of the final seven years comprising Daniel’s seventieth week, at the full end of four-thousand years. And part and parcel with this restoration also comes the overthrow of Gentile world power in anticipation of the new order of rulers in the Seventh Day. The overthrow of Gentile world power, which began as the times of the Gentiles began, is also recorded in Daniel. And we will remember from last week that God had raised up Daniel as a prophet, as the times of the Gentiles began in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

And as the times of the Gentiles will come to an end at the end of the four-thousand years, it will not surprise us to find the number four used in conjunction with Gentile world rule. And we find it in Daniel, presented through the four parts of great image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream – Da 2:32 This image's head was of fine gold, [1] its chest and arms of silver, [2] its belly and thighs of bronze, [3] 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. [4]

And we will remember that the four parts of the great image standing in Babylon give us an inextricable connection between Gentile world power and a Babylonian kingdom. A Babylonian kingdom in this context first seen in Nebuchadnezzar, the head of fine gold. And then in its final form under the Antichrist, the legs of iron and feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

The destruction of Gentile world power, pictured through the destruction of the great image, is presented this way – Da 2:34 You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth………… 44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. 45 Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold—the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”

The destruction wrought by the Rock cut without hands striking the feet of the great image is presented somewhat more graphically in the Revelation -  Re 19:17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the great  supper of God, 18 that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.” 19 And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 20 Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. 21 And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.

And the ‘great mountain that filled the whole earth’, symbolically pictures the Millennial Kingdom of Christ – Re 11:15 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”

And I am sure we have noted which angel makes this announcement.

We will continue next time if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.

The Beginning and the End - Part Four

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The Beginning and the End - Part Four

Nov 03, 2024

Speaker: John Herbert

Series: The Beginning and the End

Category: Sunday Morning

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A Recap from the Sermon