What if you had a ninety year old uncle who lived a few hundred yards from one of the many lakes in Michigan. He had witnessed the freezing over of that small lake well over fifty times. It was winter and the lake was beginning to freeze again. The temperature was in the teens and the weather report said that it would remain in the teens for at least the next 5 to 7 days. This uncle told you that it would not be safe to go ice fishing on that lake for at least 72 hours, but that after 72 hours, if the temperatures remained in the teens, he himself would go out on the lake, towing his small fishing hut and begin ice fishing. Would you ignore your uncle’s warning and go out on the lake just a-day-and-a-half later? I think most would answer, “Of course not. I would wait for 72 hours, three full days and three full nights.”
God gave us wondrous mind power, thinking ability, the capacity and potential to reason and draw conclusions. Jesus said “by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.” If my uncle says the lake will be frozen over in 72 hours and 72 hours later such is not the case, he is condemned by the words he spoke as being mistaken or untruthful. If 72 hours later the lake is frozen sufficiently for one to go ice fishing thereon, then my uncle is justified and proven to be accurate and truthful in what he said. IMMEDIATELY AFTER making the above statement about either being justified or condemned by what you say, Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees that He was going to give them only one sign and one sign only that He was truly their long awaited Messiah. He said that just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the fish’s belly, likewise He would be three days and three nights in the grave! (See Matthew 12:37-40). That was the ONLY sign He gave the Jewish people He definitely was their Messiah.
But what do multitudes of Christians believe? They say He was crucified on Good Friday and placed in the tomb as the sun was setting that Friday. They further say He was resurrected from the dead Sunday morning before sunrise! Please break out your abacus, your calculator, or limber up your fingers and start counting with me. How many days and nights are there between sundown Friday and sunrise Sunday? OK, you have Friday night and Saturday night – two nights, right? You have the daylight part of Saturday and that’s all – one day, right? So Christianity’s erroneous teaching makes Jesus a false Messiah, a liar, a deceiver, for most of Christianity says Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and resurrected on Easter Sunday morning. And it is this FALSE teaching that locks the Jewish people into rejecting Jesus as their Messiah, because He said He was giving them only one sign that He was indeed the Messiah – that sign being that He would remain in the tomb for three days and three nights. Do you think God is happy with the thousands and thousands of pastors who perpetuate this horrible falsehood? If they would only believe their Bibles they would know that there were TWO sabbaths crucifixion week, an annual Sabbath and the weekly Sabbath (See Leviticus 23). But, no, they contend, “We don’t get our doctrine out of the Old Testament.” They don’t get it out of the New Testament either. I would not want to be in any of their shoes at the judgment. I really wouldn’t. They are going to see an angry Messiah staring them in the face.
Do you know why these pastors hold to their erroneous Good Friday-Easter Sunday tradition? Because it is this tradition that they cite as their reason for abandoning God’s eternal holy Sabbath for Sunday worship. They say it is in honor of Jesus Christ arising from the dead on Easter Sunday that causes them to hallow that Sunday and every other Sunday as God’s new day of rest and worship. This, of course, is another devil’s lie. Jesus came out of the tomb Saturday evening, not Sunday morning. When the women got to the tomb a great while before day while it was still dark THEY FOUND HIM ALREADY GONE! Read it in your own Bible. (See John 20:1-2). Don’t believe man’s empty arguments, believe God’s Word. Placed in the tomb at sunset, three days and three nights later would end at sunset, not sunrise. Jesus came out of the tomb at sunset- not sunrise. That’s why the women found him gone before sunrise Sunday morning. He had been gone for many hours, going in to Galilee before returning to Judea and appearing to Mary Magdalene and the disciples. (See Matthew 26:32).
So hold to your errors and your falsehoods, if you wish. I guarantee you that you will let them go someday, but it may well prove to be too little, too late. Yes, I speak rather frankly sometimes, so did our Lord. If there ever was a Preacher who made it plain, it was Jesus. I’m just following in His footsteps and He blesses me mightily and continuously.
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley