How important is the Lord’s day to the Triune God?
The first words in the Bible are “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. Time began on the first day of creation but the Triune God has always existed.
Ephesians 1:2-6 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, in Christ. Just as He chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestined us to adoptions as sons by Jesus to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the beloved.”
Let me state right here, that for the proper understanding of the Scripture, we have have to believe in two irreconcilable facts.
- All things are planned by God from eternity.
- Human beings, created in God’s images, are responsible for their actions.
In Matthew 26:23-24, Jesus said, “He who dipped his hand with me in the dish, – Will betray Me. The Son of Man goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better if he had never been born.”
If Ephesians 1:11-12 is correct when it says, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined, according to the counsel of His will. That we who first trusted in Christ should be to the Praise of His Glory.”
I say that everything that God has planned, is planned so that God can get the praise and glory He deserves and desires.
John 1:1-3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were created through Him, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.”
These verses are talking about the second person of the Trinity, who later was born as Jesus Christ our Savior.
Genesis1:1-6 states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the earth, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. Then God said let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the Light, that is good. And God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light day. And the darkness God called night. So evening and morning, were the first day.”
Genesis 1:14-19 says, “Then God said, let there be light in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons, for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens, to give light on the earth. And it was so. Then God made the two great lights: the greater to light the day, and the lesser to light the night. So there was evening and morning, the fourth day.”
I use this verse to cause you to think about how large God is. For God to be able to create stars that are so far away that now newer telescopes are discovering more stars that God created so long ago.
And Matthew 10:30 says that God even knows how many hairs there are on each Christian’s head. So now it is very important to know what the Westminster Confession of Faith has to say about God.
There is but only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and with all most just, and terrible in His judgements, hating all sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty.
This God is perfect, to know Him, is to love Him. That is why we read about God’s plan for Himself to receive the glory, honor and praise that He desires and deserves.
God created angels that do praise Him, but they are just doing what they were created to do.
Genesis 1:26a-27 states, “Then God said, let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness. — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them.”
Genesis 2:7 says, “And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam become a living being.”
So we see that Adam, and Eve were a perfect couple. Now if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, all of their descendants would be quite similar to the angles. In the praise we would give to God.
God created us with the ability to serve God perfectly. But also with free will. And as you know Eve chose to disobey God.
The Westminster Confession of Faith says:
- Our first parents, being seduced by the subtly of Satan, sinned in eating of the fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.
- By this sin our first parents fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and became so dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all parts of their body and soul.
Adam and Eve did die spiritually on the day they ate of the fruit. Adam’s body living to be 900 years old, but spiritually they were so dead in sin that it was not possible to come to faith in Jesus Christ, unless the Holy Spirit would regenerate them, and they would be born again.
Why are the churches empty on Sunday nights?
Over the past 100 years, due to the theory of evolution, Arminianism, and Dispensationalism, it is easy to forget what God is like and what God is.
God is no longer worshipped the way He should be worshipped.
Hebrews 12:2 says, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Jesus the author of our faith. Jesus the finisher of our faith. Who for the joy, that was set before Him.
One of the definitions for “author” is the originator or creator of a plan or concept. So when the trinity was deciding how to save fallen mankind, they needed a plan to do it, so because the second person of the trinity is the only one that could save us, the Son of God offered to do it.
So on the cross Jesus knew that the plan was nearly complete, it gave him great joy when he thought of the new heaven and new earth at his second coming.
So Jesus had great joy when he thought about all the glory, honor, and praise that He would get throughout all eternity.
Yes, I am so happy that I know God loves me. First of all, God loves God. Read again what the confession says about God. Praising God for who He is and what He does, is the highest calling of man.
I am so happy that I am one of those who God has chosen to learn how to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.