Why
Does God Put the Ark of the Covenant
on Display at the Seventh Trumpet?
Dear Robert:
Thank you for your
letter. I am pleased to learn that
you found the little book, Warning!
Revelation is about to be fulfilled, helpful
and informative. I understand your
objections to my assertion that God
requires all mankind to rest from
their labors on His seventh day
Sabbath I read the attachment that
you kindly offered – written by
the late C.I.Scofield (1843-1921)
– explaining how grace nullifies
mankind’s obligation to observe
God’s law in general and His
Sabbath in particular. As I wrote in
the book, I believe the Ten
Commandments are obligatory, but not
for the purpose of salvation.
Said another way, I believe tax laws
are obligatory, but not for the
purpose of citizenship.
I understand from your
letter that you are 95% convinced
that God’s grace has made
God’s Sabbath rest obsolete.
Since there appears to be a small
opening in our thinking, may I
exploit this opening with a few
thoughts for your consideration! To
be frank, I think Scofield overlooked
a simple, but profound fact in his
article. The Bible teaches that where
there is no law, there is no penalty
and no need for grace. (Romans 4:15;
5:13) Grace only become necessary
after a transgression occurs. The
purpose of grace is to escape the
penalty which a violated law
demands. Grace does not nullify a
law. To nullify a law, it must be
rescinded, and once rescinded, there
is no penalty and no need of grace.
A few years ago I was
conducting a seminar in Texas. One
morning, I was driving on a county
road, and I entered a long curve, I
crossed over the yellow line. I
was driving about 35 miles per hour
and I could see that no other cars
were oncoming for a half a mile.
Because I often drive a large truck,
making wide turns is customary. I
didn’t realize my transgression
until a police officer on a
motorcycle pulled me over. I asked
what I had done wrong and he told me.
He then handed me a ticket for $200
and told me to stay on the right side
of the yellow line. I mention this
experience because it perfectly
illustrates the topic at hand. There
is a traffic law in Texas that
forbids crossing over a yellow line,
there was a violation (I crossed over
the yellow line), there was a $200
penalty, and I suddenly found myself
in need of grace.
Before I went to City
Hall to pay the ticket, I learned
that the city of Round Rock was short
on revenue, and not surprisingly,
there was no grace for my sin. I had
to pay the penalty in full. Even if I
had found grace, it would not have
eliminated “the yellow-line
law” because grace is limited
to offsetting the penalty of a law.
Scofield and many scholars since him
have incorrectly concluded that
God’s grace eliminates
God’s law. This is not the case.
When God rescinds a law (as in the
law of Moses), there is no further
violation of that law because it does
not exist anymore. More importantly,
there is no need for grace from a
penalty that no longer exists.
Therefore, the need for grace
indicates the presence of a penalty
and a penalty indicates the presence
of a law.
As you know, Robert,
many Christians do not separate the
laws of Moses from the Ten
Commandments. They lump the laws
together and abolish all of them at
the cross. They improperly use
Colossians 2:11-17 and Ephesians
2:14, 15 to support the idea that God
has set mankind free from His laws.
Where there is no law, there is no
transgression; there is no need of
grace. When a person improperly
uses a Bible text, he puts the Bible
in a state of internal conflict. God’s
Word is not full of cancellations. In
other words, the Bible does not say
one thing and then cancel that
statement by saying something else
that is contradictory. On the
surface, some verses appear to
be in conflict with other verses, but
this apparent conflict
evaporates when the whole truth on a
matter is discovered. Truth is proven
by the harmony that comes from the
sum of its parts.
Ironically, many
Christians will say the Ten
Commandments were abolished at the
cross and then they will immediately
do an about face. They will say that
nine of the Ten Commandments are
obligatory because “they are
restated in the New Testament.”
This foolish approach to the
authority of the Ten Commandments
hides a simple objective. It presumes
to eliminate the obligation of the
fourth commandment – even though
Hebrews 4:4-10 specifically restates
the necessity of observing God’s
seventh day Sabbath.
Now that we have
covered a few core issues, I have a
question for you. For the sake of
discussion, let us set aside the
issues of law, penalty, and grace,
and assume that Scofield is right in
his conclusion that the Ten
Commandments were abolished when
Jesus died on the cross. With this
thought in mind, please consider the
following:
At the Seventh
Trumpet
When the seventh
trumpet sounds, a very unusual thing
will take place. The book of
Revelation says, “Then
God’s temple in heaven was
opened, and within his temple was
seen the Ark of the Covenant. And
there came flashes of lightening,
rumblings, peals of thunder, an
earthquake and a great
hailstorm.” (Revelation 11:19)
Robert, why does God put the Ark of
the Covenant on display at the
seventh trumpet?
To appreciate the
importance of the question, three
facts need to be stated:
1. Unlike the
laws written by Moses, the Ten
Commandments were inscribed on two
tablets of stone by God’s own
finger and they called “the
covenant” or “the
testimony.” Consider
these two texts: Moses said to
Israel: “The Lord gave me two
stone tablets inscribed by the finger
of God. On them were all the
commandments the Lord proclaimed to
you on the mountain out of the fire,
on the day of the assembly. At the
end of the forty days and forty
nights, the Lord gave me the two
stone tablets, the tablets of the
Covenant.” (Deuteronomy
9:11, insertion and emphasis mine)
“When the Lord finished speaking
to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the
two tablets of the
Testimony, the tablets
of stone inscribed by the finger of
God.” (Exodus 31:18)
2. We find in
Scripture that the Ten Commandments
were placed in a special gold box
called “the Ark of the Testimony”
or “the Ark of the Covenant.”
“He
[Moses] took the Testimony
[the Ten Commandments] and placed it
in the Ark, attached the poles
to the ark and put the atonement
cover over it. Then he brought the
Ark into the tabernacle and hung
shielding curtain and shielded the
Ark of the Testimony, as the Lord
commanded him.” (Exodus
40:20,21) When the Israelites entered
Canaan, they were told to stay back
about a half mile from the Ark of the
Covenant. Joshua said, “[Follow
the priests carrying the Ark of the
Covenant] Then you will know which
way to go, since you have never been
this way before. Keep a distance of
about a thousand yards between
you and the Ark [of the
Covenant]; do not go near it…
See, the Ark of the Covenant
of the Lord of all the Earth will
go into the Jordan ahead of you,,,
now the Jordan is at flood stage all
during harvest. Yet as soon as the
priests who carried the Ark
reached the Jordan and their feet
touched the water’s edge, the
water from upstream stopped flowing.
It piled up in a heap a great
distance away, at a town called Adam
in the vicinity of Zarethan, while
the water flowing down to the Sea of
the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was
completely cut off. So the
people crossed over opposite Jericho.
The priests who carried the Ark of
the Covenant of the Lord stood
firm on dry ground in the middle of
the Jordan, while all Israel passes
by until the whole nation had
completed the crossing on dry
ground.” (Joshua 3:4, 11, 15-17,
insertions and emphasis mine)
3. Revelation
13:8 indicates that a great conflict
over worship will occur during the
Great Tribulation. The Bible predicts
that all of the wicked will
worship the beast, that is, the
wicked will obey the laws of the
beast. “All inhabitants
of the earth will worship the
beast – all whose names have
not been written in the book of
life…[and] all who refused to
worship the image [of the beast
were] to be killed.”
(Revelation 13:8,15, insertions and
emphasis mine) The biblical
definition of worship is more
inclusive than a religious meeting.
Worship means obedient submission to
God’s will. (John 4:23; Romans
12:1; Hebrews 11: 7, 8) For a stark
contrast in what worship is and is
not, please examine the story of Cain
and Abel. (Genesis 4)
Summarizing
·
God wrote the Ten Commandments on two
tablets of stone with His own finger. The
Ten Commandments are called “the
covenant” or “the
testimony.”
·
The golden box containing God’s
covenant or testimony was called
“the Ark of the Covenant”
or “the Ark of the
Testimony.”
·
The issue of obedient worship will
separate the sheep (those obeying the
laws of our Creator) from the goats
(those obeying the laws of the beast)
during the Great Tribulation.
Now that the facts
have been reviewed, here again is the
question: If the Ten Commandments
were abolished (rescinded) at the
cross and they are no longer
obligatory, why does God open up the
Heavenly temple and put the Ark of
the Covenant on display at the
seventh trumpet! Could it be that God
wants to show a defiant world the ten
laws they refused to obey, that is,
the Sabbath they ridiculed, the
Covenant they refused to accept?
Divine Origin
Man did not devise the
Ten Commandments. The Creator of the
Universe descended upon Mt. Sinai to
personally give mankind His laws. The
Ten Commandments are changeless (they
were written in stone by the finger
of God) because they are based on
divine wisdom and authority. Obeying
the commandments will bring many
blessings, if we properly relate to
them. On the other hand, if we reject
the Ten Commandments, painful and
unexpected consequences will be the
result because they are the bedrock
of happiness and well-being.
Bible history
indicates that religious people
become unhealthy when they improperly
use the laws of God as a means to
obtain salvation (legalism). The Jews
deceived themselves into thinking
they were righteous and special in
God’s sight because they
obeyed His laws. This toxic
relationship with God’s laws is
not limited to Jewish history. Church
history indicates that Christians
have also turned away from
worshipping God by substituting
traditions and manmade rules. Many
Christians have improperly defined
and exalted grace. The result
is lawlessness. Notice that the Jews
obeyed the law (legalism) and
Christians abolished the law
(lawlessness). Both actions have
accomplished the same result! Both
groups of people participate in
idolatry. Idolatry occurs when
the first commandment is broken.
God’s law was not designed to
save mankind and God’s grace was
not designed to save mankind. On the
contrary, the Ten Commandments were
designed as a covenant and God’s
grace is revealed by His willingness
to forgive sinners. The key to
salvation is through faith in God.
(Ephesians 2:8, 9) According to
Hebrews 11, faith is our willingness
to go, to be, and to do all that God
commands (law). Because we cannot
perfectly do everything that God
requires, God provides grace from the
penalty for sin when we seek
forgiveness. When He sees that we are
doing our best to honor and glorify
Him, He is pleased to extend grace
– but His grace does not
nullify His law!
A Covenant
Many people ask,
“How are the Ten Commandments a
covenant?” A covenant is a
promise. The Ten Commandments reveal
how a born again person wants to
live and what a born again person wants
to do. Because the power of sin
lives within us (Romans 7:17),
sinners cannot perfectly fulfill the
demands of the Ten Commandments.
Everyone has fallen short. (Romans
3:23) Of course, God understands the
law of sin that operates within us
and His grace is sufficient for all
sinners who repent of wrong doing and
put their faith in Him for salvation.
Grace ‘by no means”
nullifies God’s covenant!
(Romans 3:31; 6:15) Sinners can have
a healthy, growing relationship with
God if they will study His laws and
depend on the Lord for transforming
power. A healthy relationship with
God and His laws refines and ennobles
every sinner because “The law of
the Lord is perfect, converting
(changing) the soul.” (Psalm
19:7, insertion mine) And that is
God’s promise.
Robert, my hope is
that you will prayerfully consider
what God’s Word has to say
regarding this matter. Thank you
again for your letter. May the Lord
bless you in every possible way.
Larry
Wilson
