Theater of the universe

“And there was war in heaven.
Michael and His angels fought against the dragon,
and the dragon and his angels fought back.”
Revelation 23:7-10

“And there was war in heaven. Michael and His angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven. That great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.”¹

Lucifer, the “light bearer,” a created angel, overcome by pride and jealousy, wanted to be God. He accused God, falsely, claiming Him to be an unjust tyrant. Almighty God of the universe, could have destroyed him and his angel followers immediately but had he done so, it could appear to all others in the cosmos that Lucifer’s lying accusations might be true.

God wanted the angels and all other beings in the cosmos, to be free moral agents and to worship Him from love, not as automatons, from fear. There was no choice but to banish the rebels from heaven and isolate them to enable the evil consequences of the rebellion to play out for all to see. Lucifer and his rebel force were confined to Earth, now the theater of the Cosmos, the showcase for evil.

The pristine beauty of life, thriving in a perfectly balanced ecology, had been designed and created at the command of God, in a literal week of seven days. It was here that the architect of death ran rampant, “like a roaring lion,” seeking to destroy God’s handiwork.

Adam and Eve, created in God’s own image, endowed with the moral power of free choice, became Satan’s prime targets. Using dazzling deception, the first couple fell for the con job and bit into the forbidden fruit. At that instant, the curtain rose on the drama of the ages. Adam and Eve unintentionally emerged in starring roles.

Once unleashed by the sin virus, the death spiral infected all life on the little “blue dot” planet. The war between good and evil would play out through the disastrous last act when the love and justice of God would be vindicated and Satan’s deceit exposed.

The Divine source of life’s origin emerged as the anchor issue. The Genesis account describes a blob of water-covered matter, floating in cosmic darkness transformed into Planet Earth, throbbing with life, at the command of God. As a weekly reminder of His love, justice, and pre-eminent power, the Creator inaugurated the Sabbath on the seventh day of creation week. Humans were guaranteed a weekly rest from physical labor and the opportunity to worship, honor and communicate with God, the Creator of life.

Satan, father of jealousy, hatred, and death, resorted to entice human minds with fake “knowledge,” suggesting life created itself, accidentally, from non-living matter. The Sabbath, sanctified by God and incorporated as a centerpiece of His ten commandments, stood as a forever bulwark, exposing Satan’s insidious evil designs, as long as preserved and respected by humans. Consequently, the arch-deceiver attacks the Sabbath by every subtle, diversionary means conceivable: influencing cultures to ignore the Sabbath completely; exploiting religious systems to not only change the day of observance, and even using science to deny the existence of a creator on the fabricated theory that life created itself and then evolved into all species of plants and animals over mega millions of years.

The Sabbath: A Sacred Act of Worship

Before there were brand-name churches or mankind struggling for survival under Satan’s brutal intrusion, the seventh day Sabbath, put in place and sanctified by God, crowned creation week. “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made: and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” ²

When God inspired Moses to free His “chosen” people from Egyptian slavery, He delivered His ten commandments, carved in tables of stone. Beyond reflecting God’s character of love and justice, it summarized mankind’s duty to God and other humans. The Sabbath commandment stood tall at the center reminding the multitude of former slaves that all-powerful, Almighty God had created all life; delivered them from physical slavery; and carried the promise of freeing all who worshiped Him and obeyed His commandments freedom from sin’s shackles.

“Remember that keep the Sabbath, Six days shalt thou labour and shalt do all thy works. But on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beasts, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, and the seas, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” ³

Jesus not only worshiped on the seventh day Sabbath, “as was His custom,” but emphasized the perpetuity of the ten-commandment Law.

“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, or the least stroke of a pen, by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever preaches and teaches these commandments will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will not certainly enter the kingdom of heaven.” ⁴

Despite this unequivocal endorsement by God’s “only begotten son,” the majority of Christian churches have not only abandoned seventh-day Sabbath worship as ordained, blessed, and sanctified by the Creator, but call Sunday the Sabbath. The history of this transition has played out over many years, driven by a variety of human ideas and events.

Holy Bible, Revelation 12:7-10
Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims Version, Genesis 2:2.
Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims Version, Exodus 20:8-11
Holy Bible, Matthew 5:1