The Sabbath Day | |||
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. |
With all the workings of the devil in attacking the things of God, having them removed from any general public exposure, there seems to be one 'sign' of God that is an everlasting sign. That sign also contains a cursing against the wick, those who fight against God, His Christ and Zion, and that is that those who do not keep the Sabbath day Holy unto the Lord, they are breaking one of the Ten Commandments of God. And the Calendars of the world are a ever present 'sign' of the Sabbath Day commandment ever standing before their very eyes daily as a reminding 'sign' and 'witness' against them.
Whether it is the Old Testament Sabbath of the Jews with the seventh day counting of it being Saturday, or that it is of the New Testament keeping of the first day of the week, Sunday, placing it first and unto the pointing to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; the odd prime number Commandment of the 7 Day week is a perpetual sign unto Israel and men that it is God who is over this earth unto whom men are to turn look for their future life salvation and any heavenly reward they have earned or failed to have earn in respect to their recognition and service unto God the Father of Spirits and His Only Begotten Son in the flesh, Jesus Christ.
A SIGN: We use the very odd prime number of '7' as our 'SEVEN DAY WEEK' calendar. 'Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy.' That is the Seventh Day Commandment of God. . . . According to Genesis, the seven day cycle was introduced by God when the 'six days of God's creation' were used to form the elements of the earth into a living world for Adam, Eve and mankind. After the 'six days of creation' God rested on the seventh day. When God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses the 4th commandment was that Isreal, coming out of Egypt, was to keep the seventh day, the Sabbath Day, Holy. Many of the corrupted cults of religion of the earth have maintained the seven day pattern such as Babylon. Thanks to his Christian conversion, in 321 A.D. Constantine made the seven day week offical, and so the Julian Calendar and the seven day Jewish/Christian week was institued into our 'modern' calendars today.
The graphic of the 'days' of creation that appears at the right sets out a summary of the
events of each day. It also produces a suggestive number of questions. Certainly the naming
of the days of creation by the develop names of those days of the week is an example of
using something of today and applying it to something of ages past. I don't know the Lord's
names for the week, but I hardly consider that they would be back then according to th
Lord of creation, they would not be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday. Those are man's name of 'his' particular language for those days of the week, so
perhaps the illustrative chart would do just as well as to not have man's days of the
week used.
The author of the chart also seems to made a distinction between 'making' (creating) as opposed to 'filling.' Many traditional Christians also maintain a literal '6 day' creation and even within the times of days of the earth today. That is quite a busy work week. But others suggest that the duration of time of a day to the Lord is different from the duration of a day to man, even such as a 1,000 years of man is but one day unto the Lord. Yet that still does not answer all the time questions between science and religion.
The Question of Creation
So where might a member of the LDS Church so place and structure all of this in a manner in which it may fit to the seeming restraints of science? Beyond the obvious conclusion that we do not know all the answers, and neither does science for that matter, what is there about 'Mormon Doctrine' that might placate science, well at least a bit?
First the LDS Church recognizes that the ages of eternity and of God are certainly expansive and could well answer all or at least as many of the scientic knowledges that are 'truth' within the scope of the being of God. There is even LDS scriptural passages that would allow for the notion of 'cycling' the use of a planted and or the materials thereof. Such states, 'that as one earth passes away another comes into existence.' Even science recognizes within the earth's own natural cycles there are such periods of 'extinction', even total extinction of the earths various forms of life, at least to various degrees. Another LDS scripture does not exclusively use the word 'days' alone, but it speaks in terms of 'times' and alludes to the likely possibilities of various lengths to the days spoken of depending on the various phases and states of the 'creation' process. And there is even in one place that the Lord does state that where in the heavens God dwells, 1000 years as but a day in the time of God. Whether that was figurative to represent the diference between the length of a 'time' in eternity as compared to that of earth is of question.
The LDS Prophet also taught that there was really no 'creation' of something out of nothing, as the elements themself are of an eternal nature, that is there is no such thing as immateral elements. From an LDS perspective the 'void' of the earth's condition and the actual 'forming' of things out of elements already in existence rather than abracadabra out of notingness, does speak to taking a 'relatively dead' plant's condition and processing it according to the 'pattern' of the time periods of creation into or even back into a 'living' planet certainly has no real problems of fitting into Mormon theology.
From an LDS perspective, it is well within belief, that just over 6,000 years ago, allowing for whatever the possible varying length of the days of God, the Lord took earth from a state of a form void of suitable life for the use of man at the particular time, and processed it through and by the powers of God by the 'six step logical pattern' of 'creation' to form a living planet suitable for man, a spirit child of God to come to to experience taking upon themselves a temporal tabernacle, to learn to exercise and maturate in the use of their own agency outside of the immediate influence of their parents, Father and Mother in Heaven, that they might become tested in such a manner that would make them into a fuctioning 'adult' entity of eternity as to were they would fit next into the eternal plan of the progression of man.
The only real basic conflict between LDS beliefs and those 'true' beliefs of science, is that members of The Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints certainly do believe in God's intelligent design in the 'creation' process as opposed to science's theory of life falling out of the chaos space and time evolution without divine intervention. And an LDS person might speak to the mathmatical impossiblities of such formations of design happening merely out of chaos rather than by 'God's guiding and directing hand.' It is like thinking that out of lifeless elements, if left alone by themselves long enough, they would be able to come to paint a Michelangelo masterpiece. That is as one observes the detailed complexities of developed life forms, there just is no way possible that such could or would evolve on their own out of lifeless chaos regardless of giving them zillions of ions to do so. It would be like telling a Cadillac car, "Go build yourself on the planet mars." A Volkswagen, maybe. It is just impossible for some such complexities dealing with the formation of life, to have made themselves alone. It is even worse that thinking you can make something out of nothing.