The Creation Completed

First Quarter 2013 Adult Sabbath School Lessons
The Creation Completed
For the week of Jan. 19, 2013

 
 
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. Hab. 2:14
 
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:9
 
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From the beginning, it seems God’s purpose was to first create space, and then fill it with activity and life. He being the source of all that is good and right, all things would be dependent on Him, "for in Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28
 
Christ would be the active Word in creation who would create the spaces, and then create the meaning and purpose for the all that inhabited those spaces.
 
“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” Col. 1:16,17.
 
On Day One, He would create the great divide between light and darkness. Two great contrasting spaces in which to place the sun, moon and stars on Day Four. And perhaps a heads-up to Lucifer, who was to comprehend that even the darkness he had “created” by rejecting the light of God’s love would be ruled by that light and that light reflected in those who chose to live in His love.
 
On Day Two, He would separate the water - above and below  - ready to fill with swooping and swimming creativity in action on Day Five. And somewhat of a preamble to the prophetic pictures later to come of the battle between the people of earth who would identify with the God of Heaven and the people who would take the part of Leviathan, the king of pride (see Job 41 and Isaiah 28:1).
 
On Day Three, He would bring the land out of the water, for filling on Day Six with all the land animals, and the amazing image of God Himself found in mankind!  The land was also a portent of the beachhead that Christ would make in restoring the liberty of all humanity to rise above the white-capped chaotic confusion into which they would soon be plunged.
 
And in the very end of time, land would be the symbol (Rev. 13:11) of a place where God’s called out remnant would use the brief time and space provided by liberty found in the United States of America to project the glory of the Lord (“the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” 2 Cor. 4:6) to the whole world.  
 
And finally, all of the space and filling of that space during the first six days of creation was to culminate in the Sabbath. 
 
The Sabbath - a sign of the creative power that created and sustained all that mankind could see - including himself. Exodus 20:8-11.
 
The Sabbath - a sign of God’s creative power to redeem all that was lost by Adam’s fall. Ezekiel 20:12, Deut. 5:15.
 
The Sabbath - made for man, because man needed a reminder, both before and after the fall, of his relationship of complete and total dependence on God for all things. And appropriately enough, part of that end-time three-angels message which would blanket the earth, amplified by the mighty fourth angel of Revelation 18:1.
 
 
Now, the very personal question for each of us. God has created the space in us to be inhabited by Himself in the Person of Christ the Word by the Agency of the Holy Spirit. Will we really believe in Creation? Will we truly keep the Sabbath?
 
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From A.T. Jones:

The word says, "Be ye clean." He said, back yonder, "Let there be light; and there was light." He said to the leper, "Be thou clean;" and "immediately" he was clean. He says now to you, "be ye clean," and what now? Every one of you—what do you say? [Voice: "It is so."] Then for your soul's sake put yourself upon that creative word. Recognize the creative energy in the word of God which comes to you in the Bible; for this word of God in the Bible is the same here to you to-day that it was when it spoke into space the worlds on high, and brought light out of darkness, and cleansing to the leper. That word spoken to you to-day, if received, creates you new in Christ Jesus, that word, spoken into the dark waste and void space of your heart, if received, produces there the light of God; that word spoken to-day to you, afflicted with the leprosy of sin, if received, immediately cleanses you. Let it. Let it.
 
How shall I be clean?—By the creative energy of that word, "Be ye clean." Therefore it is written, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." John 15:3. Are you? Will you from this moment be a creationist? or will you go on being an evolutionist? 
 
See what a blessed thing this is. When you read the word, receive the word, and think upon the word, what is it to you all the time? O, it is creation! The creative energy is in you producing the things which the word speaks; and you are living in the very presence of the power of creation. Creation is going on in your life. God is creating, in you, righteousness, holiness, truth, faithfulness,—every good and gracious thing. 
 
And when this is so, your Sabbath-keeping will amount to something, because the Sabbath is a memorial of creation,—the sign that he who observes it knows the Creator, and is acquainted with the process of creation. But as certainly as you are an evolutionist, your Sabbath-keeping is a fraud. 
 
Unless you recognize the word of God day by day as a creative energy in your life, your Sabbath-keeping is a fraud; because the Sabbath is a memorial of creation. It is "a sign between me and you, that [by which] ye may know that I am the Lord your God," the Creator of all things. 
In the second chapter of Ephesians, eighth to tenth verses, we read: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." ....
 
There are only the two ways. There is no half-way ground. Every man and woman in the world is either a creationist or an evolutionist. Evolution is infidelity, it is death. Creation is Christianity, it is life. Choose Creation, Christianity, and Life, that you may live. Let us be creationists only, and creationists forever. And let all the people say, Amen.
(Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, February 21, 1899)

-Todd Guthrie