There is every indication to God’s people that God has given mankind six thousand years to learn that man is unable to run things properly on this earth.  After that, Jesus Christ will return and establish His Father’s Kingdom over all the earth for a thousand years.  We should not take some man’s word for this, nor should we take it for granted, but we should prove these things for ourselves.  We find the prophetic prototype of God’s little understood time schedule for His Plan for man in the beginning of Genesis.  God's Plan for man is pictured by the creation of the seven-day week.

“God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day… [Six days of physical creation here] And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”  (Genesis 1:5-31)

When the physical re-creation was complete, God established the seventh-day Sabbath as the beginning of the spiritual creation for man.  He did so by resting on the Sabbath Day.

“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.   And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” (Genesis 2:2-3)

In all of nature’s heavenly bodies we cannot find the week!  We find the length of the day defined by earth’s rotation and the Sun.  We find the length of the month resolved by the moon’s circuit around the earth.  And, the length of the year is determined by the earth’s circuit around the sun noted by the background stars.  But nowhere in nature do we find the length of the week!  Men have searched the circuits of heaven for eons, but nowhere can the week be found in nature.

It is true, God had to give us the seven-day week or it would not exist!  Every race of man on earth recognizes the week because it was given before the great flood of Noah's day.  In fact, the seven-day week was assigned to man at the very time of creation.  The world hates to admit where the week came from.  Everyone observes it, but there is no other source for the week – save God Himself!  Reluctantly, secular history attributes the earliest known civilization to use a seven day week to the ancient [Jews] people of Israel.

The apostle Peter understood that the seven-day week pictured the seven thousand year plan of God.

“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.”  (2Peter 3:8)

Paul knew as well, when he wrote that the seventh day of the week pictured the millennial rule of Christ that follows this present evil age of human anarchy.

“There remains therefore a rest [sabbatismos] for the people of God.”  (Hebrews 4:9)

God determined that man would work for six days – representing six thousand years, and that man would rest on the seventh day Sabbath – picturing the following thousand years.  God’s plan for man encompasses seven thousand years.  This was the first prophetic sign of His Plan.

God has allotted six thousand years for man’s self-rule so that man might learn that he is unable to rule himself.  Man falls on his face over and over again.  Of course the world does not understand what is taking place because it does not know about the seven thousand year Plan of God.

God provides a brief synopsis of His Plan in the Book of Exodus.  It is an astute picture of six thousand years of labored hardship followed by a glorious 1000 years of peaceful rest.   That is when Jesus will rule over all the earth.

“In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, making it holy.” (Exodus 20:11)

Secularists look at the fossil record of millions of years and disavow the Genesis record showing a seven thousand year Plan of God.  But, the Bible does not say the earth is 6,000 years old.  We are looking for the allotted time for mankind to learn his lesson – followed by the 1000 year millennial rest when Jesus will rule from Jerusalem, making a total of 7000 years.

***

Sermon:

"Fall of Man"