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GOD’S PLAN OF SALVATION FOR MANKIND

INTRODUCTION


Not all of Christianity keeps all of God’s commandments. Most Christian churches keep some of God’s commandments, and also many of their own traditions that are not commanded in the Bible. God’s Church keeps all of God’s commandments and lives by every word of God in the Bible. That is what distinguishes God’s true Church from the rest of Christianity.   

God commanded certain days for worship. Mainstream Christianity keeps none of them. God’s fourth commandment is to ‘remember to keep the Sabbath day (from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) holy.’ All of mainstream Christianity worships on Sunday in rebellion against God. God also commanded seven annual holy days, described in Leviticus 23. Mainstream Christianity keeps none of them. Instead it keeps holidays such as Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day and the like. But you will not find any of these days even mentioned in the Bible, leave alone commanded to be kept as holy days. 

The word Easter is mentioned only once in the King James Version of the Bible in Acts 12:4: “And when he [Herod] had apprehended him [the apostle Peter], he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.” All scholars agree that the original inspired word here is “Passover” not Easter. Modern translations correct this error. So the holidays that all of Christianity celebrates were not commanded by God to be kept as holy days, but are traditions of men.  

In fact, each of these Christian holidays were pagan festivals celebrated centuries and even two thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ. In order to make Christian converts quickly, the Roman Catholic Church took the pagan festivals and attached its own Christian meaning to them and foisted them on the rest of Christianity. But consider how ridiculous and illogical it is to give concocted Christian significance to pagan holidays. 

Good Friday is supposed to commemorate the death of Jesus Christ, and Easter Sunday the resurrection from the dead three days and three nights after His death. 

When the Scribes and Pharisees (the religious leaders in Jesus’ day) asked Jesus for a sign, He answered and said to them in Matthew 12:39-40: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Thus, Jesus said that after His death He will be in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights, and will rise after that. But there is no way we can fit three days and three nights between Friday sunset and Sunday sunrise. That is how utterly ridiculous mainstream Christianity’s holidays are. They were never commanded by God to be kept holy. These were all pagan festivals dressed in Christian garb and made to appear Christian. Christians may think they are showing their love for God by celebrating these holidays, but God says the way to love Him is to KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS (John 14:15) not our own traditions. So keeping our own traditions and celebrating holidays that God did not command and attaching our own significance to them, cannot be showing love for Him.

Perhaps you can understand why God calls the Roman Church a whore, and His true Church a virgin bride. A whore does not obey its lover, as the Roman Church does not obey Jesus Christ, but tries to impose its own traditions on Christianity, if need be by threat of violence and murder when it can. In contrast God’s Church diligently searches God’s will and commandments in the Bible and obeys them.

Keeping God’s Sabbaths and seven annual holy days is what distinguishes God’s true Church from the rest of Christianity. The Jews keep the Sabbath and most of these annual holy days also, but without understanding the deep spiritual significance that each of God’s annual holy days represents a major milestone in God’s great plan of  salvation for mankind. They do not understand their significance because they reject Jesus Christ as the Messiah and what He taught.

God in the Bible commanded seven holy days to be kept forever. Each of these seven holy days have very special meaning and significance attached to them. The early Church started by Jesus understood their meaning and significance. However, that understanding was lost even to God’s true Church after the original apostles and leaders they appointed had died. In the end-time, the true meaning and significance of these holy days was revealed to Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong through whom God founded the modern era of His Church.  

Most Christians and the rest of humanity sneer at keeping God’s holy days by calling them Jewish holidays.  But the truth about these holy days is that they are not Jewish holy days, but God’s holy days.  

Leviticus 23:1-2,4, the chapter that describes the weekly Sabbath and all the seven annual holy days or feasts clearly states that these are not Jewish holy days but God’s feasts: “1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts…4 'These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.” The chapter concludes in verse 44: 44 So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord.” Three times in the chapter these are declared to be the Lord’s feasts and not Jewish or Israelite feasts.

Significance of the Sabbath 

God instituted the Sabbath day when mankind was created. Genesis 2:1-3 states, “1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 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 made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified [set apart as holy] it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

God created plant life, all birds and animals, and Adam in six days. Then He rested on the seventh day and sanctified it (which means set it apart as holy). Only God’s presence can make something holy, time or land. The Sabbath day was sanctified as a memorial of creation. The Creator God commanded a holy assembly, or Church services, on this day, because It identifies Him as the only true God who is worshipped on this day. This is the day He commanded that He should be worshipped. Anyone who does not worship God on this day, does not worship the Creator God.

The seven-day week encapsulates God’s 7000-year plan of salvation for mankind. God commanded mankind to rest on the seventh day and set it apart as holy to worship Him. No regular work is to be done on this day. Man is to work on the first six days of the week to do all his labor. 

2 Peter 3:8 mentions a biblical principle of prophecy: “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.”  The seven-day week pictures the first six thousand that God has allotted for mankind to do his labor of governing himself. But then God will send Jesus Christ to usher in His kingdom on earth in which Jesus will take over the kingdoms of the world and rule over them for a thousand years. Those will be years of abundance, prosperity, justice, joy, happiness and rest for the entire world in which God’s way will be taught throughout the earth and salvation offered to all of humanity.

The details of the 7000-year plan of salvation, however, are provided in the seven annual holy days. Description of the seven annual holy days God’s true Church keeps follows.  All of God’s holy days begin at sunset the previous day and end at sunset.



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