When I met David at the Labor Day weekend campfire in 1993, I was at once SHOCKED AND CHALLENGED by what he shared with me. Looking back on it, I can't believe how spiritually SMUG I was, having come out of Catholicism into the "light of the reformation", and beyond. I thought myself to be so fortunate as to have "really found the truth" in the Calvary Chapel / Vineyard Fellowship movement. A very comfortable blend of fundamentalism, charismatic, evangelical, with a hint of "deeper things".
But on this particular night, my old familiar answers were not "holding water" to the questions Dave asked me. He was taking Bible verses that I had long ago memorized, and taken to heart, and he shined a different angle of light on it - my jaw dropped!!! I couldn't believe how he could throw a whole new spin of understanding on a verse.
The most disconcerting part of our discourse was that Dave's angle made MORE sense that the brain-twisting orthodoxy that I'd embraced all my life, up to that moment. Dave's version also had MORE collaborating Bible verses to back it up. He made me answer questions that I didn't think were even legal to ask!! My curiosity was peaked. What was this "new" version of Jesus Christ? An almost completely new understanding of "The Good News", that had been kept virtually hidden from view of the "poplular" Christian public for over 50 years?
The name of this website reflects my 'spin' on just one of the "foundational truths" that Dave shared with me that night. This one truth serves as a framework for the entire website, and I believe that it has the power to help bring exciting change to your life - if change is something you desire...
The understanding goes something like this:
In Genesis 2:2, God reveals to us His schedule. It says that He worked 6 days, then took a day of rest from His work of creating. That was, and continues to be His schedule.
Then another spiritual principle kicks in: things on earth are a reflection of the heavenly. This earth realm is a reflection of the "heavenly" realm. "...on earth as it is in heaven" and "let Us make man in Our IMAGE..." Sure enough, God's principle of dedicating the 7th day to rest and re-attunement, made it into the 10 commandments - it's # 4, and has the LONGEST explanation of any of the 10... . Although Americans currently give little more than lip-service to the Lord's Sabbath, it is clearly a part of our culture and heritage to be busy with work for 6 days, then to set 1 day aside to "rest"..
Next we need to ask; "What does God consider a "day"'?
Psa 90:4 "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by..."
And repeated in
2 Peter 3:8 "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. "
So how long is God's "day"?
It's easy to see that it's what we call "One Thousand Years"...
So now count with me for a moment; from now back to Jesus is almost 2,000 years, or 2 "days", right? Then according to Jesus' lineage, Adam's mortality (or his booting out of Eden) was almost exactly 4,000 years before Jesus, or 4 "days". So let's add it up.. 2 days, plus 4 days = 6 days. 6,000 years = 6 "days".
In essence, today's date would most accurately be shown as May, 5999. We are now 5,999 years after the date when God began His "work week" by orchestrating the events that led to Adam's booting out to the 'east'. We are nearing the end of this 6,000 year period of time.
So what happens after the sixth day? The seventh day is His day of rest. It's the SABBATH, or His DAY OF REST!!! Please do not fool yourself into thinking that He will skip His rest day. Don't for one moment consider that He would work "as usual" during His scheduled day of rest. In the strongest of language that I can declare; It won't happen! HE WILL NOT WORK on His Sabbath of Rest.
"But Noah, that is Old Testament and therefore does not apply to today."
"There remains a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;" Hebrews 4:9
While some will dismiss this obvious "speech" of a loving Father, behold MORE PROOF;
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. Gen 2:16-17
How long is a day to God?
Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died. Gen 5:5
Within the next unit of time that God calls a "day" - 930 years, Adam physically died. Yes, in a way Adam "died" SPIRITUALLY that PHYSICAL day, but also in the most REAL of ways, Adam DIED IN "THAT DAY" of the Lord's reckoning.
Have you 'seen' the title of this website yet? Dad's Day Off refers to the 'day of rest', or the 7th 1,000 year period of time that is soon upon us. The Dad part is covered extensively in this website also.
"Come now Noah, that is a good story you dreamed up there..." I can hear the scoffers now. Have you never heard of this biblical theory? It is called the "Septa-Millennial" view, or the ancient Greek word for it, used by the early church, was "Chiliasm".
It seems strange that so few have heard about a doctrine that was taught and written about by ALMOST EVERY early "Church father"... Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Methoduis and Lactanuis all held strong beliefs in the millenium. Early Church historian Dr. Larry Crutchfield claims that 21 of 34 influential writers of the ancient church taught the septa-millennial view. The others may have held the view but have had no occasion to mention it. It is apparent that it was the predominant view of the early church.
It wasn't until the 5th century that Augustine began to teach the current church view. At that time, Chiliasm took its place among the other discarded beliefs of an increasingly organized Catholic church structure. The new set of beliefs that Augustine and others introduced and established into the church, we see from history, is what threw the world into the "Dark Ages" for the next 1,000 years...
To break us out of the Dark Ages it took the rising up of an 'enemy' (the printing press) to get THINKING back in gear again. According to the calculations of Irish Bishop James Ussher (1581-1656) the time God has given to man will expire around "1996" (according to his Masoretic calculations, Jesus was born in 4 BC). That prediction was even included in the margin of his "King James Version" of the Bible which is still in many editions being used today.
David Gregory, who died in 1710, and was a noted mathematician and astronomer of Oxford, England, wrote:
"In the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis the Hebrew letter Aleph, which in Jewish arithmetic stands for 1,000, is six times found. From hence the ancient (Jewish) Cabalists concluded that the world would last 6,000 years. Because also God was six days about the 'creation, and a thousand years with Him are but as one day (Ps 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8), therefore after six days that is, 6000 years duration of the world, there shall be a seventh day, or millenary sabbath rest. This early tradition of the Jews was found in the Sibylline Oracles and in the Hesoid.
Writing in the 19th century, Bishop Russell of Scotland stated:
lt must be acknowledged that the doctrine concerning it stretches back into antiquity so remote and obscure, that it is impossible to fix its origin. The tradition that the earth, as well as the moral and religious state of its inhabitants, were to undergo a great change at the end of 6,000 years, has been detected in writings of Pagans, Jews and Christians. It is found in the most ancient of those commentaries of the Old Testament, which we owe to the learning of the Rabbinical school; ...this will nevertheless leave no room for doubt that the notion of the millennium preceded by several centuries the introduction of the Christian faith."
And of course, now that the clock is counting down the last few ticks of this 6,000 year period of time, interest in this subject is now reaching unparalleled heights.
Thank you for visiting. I pray that you are challenged to read on..
Return to "Dads Day Off" homepage.