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Printed
July - August, 1958
Symbolic
Code, Vol. 13, Nos. 9, 10 2
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QUESTIONS
ANSWERED ON SABBATH OBSERVANCE
DOES
LUNAR CALENDAR OR WEEKLY CYCLE GOVERN SABBATH?
(Cont.)
Part 3
As for a
lunar calendar, let us not lose sight of the fact that Moses and the people that
he led out of Egypt were all born and raised in Egypt; that they knew of no
other than the Egyptian calendar. And
what was it?--History gives the answer in the following paragraphs:
"We
know from the Latin writer Censorinus that the first day of the Egyptian
calendar year coincided with the rising of Sothis in A.D. 139, and it must
therefore have done the same thing 1460 solar years earlier and so on, i.e. in
1321 B.C., 2781 B.C., 4241 B.C., 5701 B.C., etc. ...Egyptologists consequently
date the introduction of the calendar to 4241 B.C. or to 2781 B.C. according as
they believe the pyramids to be earlier or later than the latter date.
A still higher date, e.g., 5701 B.C., is hardly likely.
"...Twelve
nominal months of 30 days each gave 360 days, and the missing 5 days were added
on at the end under the name of 'days additional to the year.'
The months were
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grouped
into three sets of four, the first four forming the inundation season, the
second four the winter or sowing-time and the third four the summer or
harvest."--Encylopedia Britannica, 1950 edition, Vol. 4, pp. 576, 575.
Subject: Calendar,--Egyptian.
While
history points out that the Egyptian month consisted of thirty days, Moses
reveals in his writings that the Noatic month likewise was thirty days long.
(See Gen. 7:11, and 8:3, 4). The
only change God made in the Egyptian calendar was: "This month [Abib] shall
be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to
you." Ex. 12:1, 2.
Since
Moses and the people whom he led out knew of no other than the Noatic and
Egyptian calendars, and since God corrected only the time in which the year was
to begin, He thus revealed that, aside from the time in which the new year was
to commence, Egypt's measuring time was to be theirs too.
He even approved of the Egyptian names of the months as it is seen from
the fact that "the month Abib" (Egypt's name of the month), the day it
began and the day it ended), was chosen to be their first month of the year (Ex.
12:2; 13:4). Moreover, the Jews also used in their calendar the Medo-Persian
or Babylonian months in place of the Hebrew numbers of the months.
The Medo-Persian Nisan (Egypt's Abib) the Jews took for their year's
first month, Iyar
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for the
second, Sivan for the third, and so on, four of which are recorded in the Bible.
They are: Abib (Ex. 13:4), Zif (1 Kings 6:1), Ethanim (1 Kings 8:2), Bul
(1 Kings 6:38). The Jews could not have used the Egyptian and the Medo-Persian
names of the months interchangeably if the months were not parallel with the
Hebrew months. Furthermore, we have
already seen from history's record, too, that Egypt's week was the same as the
Hebrew week. This being so, the
Lord said nothing about the week or the month.
Still
further, the calendar which the prophets used in both the Old and New
Testaments, was not lunar, but solar: For
example, in Noah's time 150 days equaled five months, 30 days to a month, (Gen.
7:11; 8:3, 4). In Daniel 7:25 and
12:7, also in Revelation 12:14, "time, times, and the dividing of
time,"--three and a half years--are interpreted in Revelation 12:6, and
13:5 to be 1260 days, or 42 months, thirty days to a month.
Heaven's way of measuring time is, therefore, not lunar, but solar.
When God
created the moon He appointed it to rule the night (Gen. 1:14-18), not the day.
Not the moon alone, therefore, but both the sun and the moon jointly He
appointed "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." Gen.
1:14.
It is in
1 Samuel 20:5, in King Saul's day
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that the
Bible first mentions celebrating new-moon-days and it is perhaps the only Bible
statement upon which the lunar-time theorists have based their faith in lunar
calendars.
Celebrating
a new-moon-day does not prove that the months began with the new moon.
Moreover, if they had to celebrate the day on which the month began, then
why not celebrate the day on which the week began, and also the day on which the
year began?
Some
take 1 Samuel 20:27 as proof that the months began with each new moon, but when
one stops and thinks, he discovers that if the months had begun with the
celebration of the new-moon-days, then it would have been needless for King Saul
to point out that a day after the celebration was the second day of the month;
such a statement would indeed have been superfluous if the celebration was
invariably followed by the second day of the month.
The Scripture, therefore, rather than proving that the months began with
a new moon, it proves that they did not, but that it so happened that in that
particular year the day after the celebration was the second day of the month.
This is what the Scripture actually points out and nothing more.
Bible
commentators generally hold that sometime after the Hebrews went out of Egypt
they began to use lunar time, but no one knows
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exactly
when and by whom it was commanded. Suppose
it is true that the Jews kept lunar time. It
is no sign that we should follow their un-Biblical example, for their constant
insubordination caused them to do many things which they had no business doing.
Finally,
since Moses and the prophets after him are entirely silent about a lunar
calendar, then why should we to our own damnation add strange sparks, sparks of
our own devising, to the light of God?
"Yea,
the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not
shine." Job 18:5. "Who is
among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that
walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord,
and stay upon his God. Behold, all
ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the
light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.
This shall ye have of Mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow." Isa.
50:10, 11.
Since
this is the only light which the Bible sheds on the subject, the lunar calendar
theory, therefore, appears to be only conjectural, and not at all Biblical.
Consequently "it is good that a man should both hope and quietly
wait for the salvation of the Lord" (Lam. 3:26), not to run ahead of Him.
We can thus avoid pre-
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senting
strange fires before Him. Nadab and
Abihu were unmindful of God's command not to meddle with His statutes, "and
there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them,..."--Lev. 10:1, 2.
"Be not," therefore, "carried about with divers and
strange [un-Biblical] doctrines." Heb. 13:9.
Take
your hands off the ark of God; the ark is to be supported by only Him Who knows
how, when, and by Whom.
And now
we come to still another ism, to the illusion of a
ONE
THOUSAND YEAR SABBATH!
There is
no more fantastic a Sabbath theory than that which holds its victims captive in
the belief that the Sabbath is 1,000 years long, erecting its wildly fanciful
claims upon the bald assumption that the seven days of creation were each a
period of 1,000 years! Absurd as the theory is, yet it goes on and on, when but
scarcely more than a glance through the record of creation is needed to convince
any objective reader that those days of creation were 24 hours long.
The record, "And the evening and the morning were the first
day" (Gen. 1:5), dissipates any possibility other than that the day was in
two parts--one part dark (night), the other part light (day).
And since the same statement, "the evening and
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the
morning, "was repeated with each succeeding day of creation, Inspiration
thereby definitely certifies that each day in the week of creation was 24 hours
long--twelve hours of night and twelve hours of day (John 11:9).
If these
seventh-day Sabbath evaders believe what the Bible teaches, then why do they not
ask themselves what "the evening and the morning" would be other than
a night and a day--24 hours? Would
they dare tell us that the night and the day were each 500 years long!
If so, then how did vegetation and animal life thrive or even survive 500
years at a time without sunshine and heat, and 500 years at a time without rest
from the blazing light and heat of the sun?
Moreover, if such were the case then, why is it not such now?
Who recreated time and conditions?
As this
theory is wholly contrary to Scripture, the Devil has therefore of necessity put
his hammer of pseudo science into the hands of this particular class of Sabbath
dodgers to help them drive their canopy stakes into falsehood.
For he well knows that all evaders of Truth prefer to place greater
confidence in so-called learned men than in the Spirit of God Who Himself was
present at creation, and by Whom "holy men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost." 2 Peter 1:21.
But do
these millennium-long-sabbath
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theorists
appeal to no Bible at all in support of their way of reasoning?
O, yes! They, too, have their Bible test, and here it is:
"But,
beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 2 Pet. 3:8.
They
construe this scripture as proof that where the Bible says a day It means a
thousand years, and that therefore each of the seven days of creation were of a
thousand years duration, and the complete work of creation seven millenniums
long! last of which is supposed to have been the seventh millennium, the
Sabbath.
What! Do
they mean to say that the Lord was 3,000 years in the heart of the earth instead
of three days and three nights (Matt. 12:40)?
Evidently according to their logic that is what they must say.
Now let
us study this scripture to determine what it actually says and means.
Note that it does not say that a day is one thousand years, but rather
that a day is "as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day."
Plainly, it does not either say or mean that one day is a thousand years
long--no, not any more than it says or means that, conversely, one thousand
years are one day long. It in no
wise says or means either the one or the other,
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but is
simply illustrating that with eternal God one thousand years are as short a
period of time as is one day with us mortals.
Why is this illustration used? Because scoffers were to arise, saying:
"...Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" (2
Peter 3:4) and still He has not come. Over
against this short-sighted reasoning by earth-bound mortals, the Divine
comparison in the illustration in question underwrites God's promises as
timeless, as immutable, and as sure as God Himself. The great lesson which the illustration teaches is that with
Him time does not mean what it does to us mortal men who come and go "as a
shadow that passeth away" (Ps. 144:4) and "as a tale that is
told."--(Ps. 90:9).
Inspiration
thus reveals that Sabbath-evasion victims who continue in their plight after
having been shown the truth of the Sabbath are either unsound or insincere, or
both.
The fact
is now fully evidenced that Satan has something to suit the taste of everyone
who does not himself dig down deep into the wells of salvation, does wickedly
and does not believe exactly what the Bible says.
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