Magnificent Seven

The title of today's sermon is The Magnificent Seven. Perhaps you remember in 1954, Akura Kuruqala was a writer and a producer, and he had this movie made called The Seven Samurai. And it was a story about seven samurai warriors who were hired to protect this village to keep it from being desecrated by the evil of its day. You might even... and that then was turned in about eight or nine years later to another movie called The Magnificent Seven, which had another remake, what, just a few years ago with Denzel Washington. But most of you might remember the movie Magnificent Seven with Steve McQueen and Yule Brenner. Remember that? As these men were hired to protect the city, protect this village, they were hired, and they were to keep it from being torn apart. Everybody remembers the theme hopefully.

Makes me want to play that every time I walk in the house. So Mary will know her magnificent husband is home. I don't know if it'll do any good, but I thought that would be nice to have it like that. Well, today I want to talk about the Magnificent Number Seven. The Magnificent Number of Seven. We see it all through the Bible. We see God's holy days in Scripture, and they go all the way back to Genesis 1 and verse 14. So at the very start of the Bible, we see the Number Seven. As it gives us, then God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons. Moed or Moedim means religious appointments. How many religious appointments did He give us? How about 59? Because He gave us an appointment what? And then? Yes! 59! Of course, occasionally a holy day will fall on a Saturday, so that is about it. But these are not just seven days of the year, but they're God-designed, God-designated appointments to come before Him and do what? Worship. Worship! He didn't give us five. He didn't give us four. He didn't give us six. He gave us seven annual holy days, and they were designated before, really, calendars existed. But if you have no calendar, you have no problem, really, because you have the seasons and you have the moons, and hopefully you have the ability to count. So they didn't have to have calendars. You have a divine clock, you might say, for signs and seasons. I'd like you to ruminate on this. So every seven days we have an appointment, as you have said, and then seven times a year we have another appointment. Is there a pattern here? Is there something magnificent about the number seven that God tends to use it? Do the masters of the universe have an affinity for this incredible number? Does God play favorites with the day of the week? Can we see the actual God of heaven, the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient creator of the universe in the number seven? Do you? Can you? Some people do. Is the number seven, that magnificent number seven, divinely attached to our creator and to the creation as he looked down and said, let there be light?

And so many other things that he has laid out for us and for those who came before us, are there things we've never even considered before about that magnificent number seven that came from way up there? I want to hopefully introduce you and get to some things maybe you have not thought about before because some people will say, well, yeah, but, yeah, but so let's cut out the butts today and let's look at some things and let's focus on this incredible number, the magnificent seven. It's kind of like a car and how you begin to focus on a car that you bought. Now, Bill, you just bought a car not long ago. Others may have a car, but isn't it amazing you've seen that car before, but once you buy that car, you see that car everywhere. You begin to see it. Why? Because of your focus. Because you start looking. Now, you notice. Now, you notice things.

We worship every seven days. There are said there were seven days of creation, right? Nobody. Anything about that. You can see that in whether it's Deuteronomy 1616 that there are seven times a year feast days that we've already talked about. You can see a minute Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23 and 44. But it says they are the seven times are the feast of the Jews. Now, they are the feasts of the Lord. So he designated not eight and not six, but seven feast days because he's building a relationship with those who want to follow him. And so he's decided that's enough.

I didn't. United Church of God didn't. Bill Loftus didn't. But God did. And it isn't amazing. So we look in this book. You go from Genesis that we just read, Genesis 1, and you go all the way back to the back of the book to Revelation. And the number seven is mentioned over 700 times. 700 times. Try to find any other number even close. Save you time. There are none. Even close to 700 times. In the book of Revelation, the last book, we looked at the first book. How about the last book? You know, there's over 50 times in the book of Revelation. Oh, more than 50 times. That's the number seven is used. You recall? You think about it? Seven seals, right? How many trumpets? How many churches? How many spirits? How many angels? Seven angels. How many lampstands? That's just some. It's an easy test today. You can teach. You know. You know the answer before it's coming, right? But then you look and even God inspired His teaching to be changed once He looked at it. You ever think about that? God, I don't say He changed His mind. He just rethought things. And He said, not good enough. Know where that is? How about Jeff Newell giving me Proverbs chapter six? Proverbs chapter six, right? These six things the Lord hates, but then what does He got to do? Well, stop, turn out. I hate seven. There are seven things I hate. They're detestable to me, even abominations. That's what God said. Even when He wanted to say six, He said seven. Is it His favorite number? No. He says in this book that every seventh year is a sabbatical year. A time to rest. Even to all the farmers. Get out of fields. Let them rest every seven years. And then He said, we look, and He says, oh, Frank, I want you to keep up with those seven years, and I want you to do that seven times. And then at the end of seven sevens, we have what? Jubilee. Jubilee. Freedom.

I think there's a pattern here. What about the first feast of the year? How many days are in the days of Unleavened Bread? Seven. Seven. Okay. How many days are in the days of the Feast of Tabernacles? Seven. But what happens after the seventh day, you have the what? Seventh feast of the year, which follows the seven days to finish up the year. Right? It's almost as if God's obsessed. He's locked into seventh. I think He likes over 700 times in the Bible. That is amazing.

Now that you're such good students and you have all the answers to everything, back in Genesis when it's the story of Joseph, he tells about, he tells the Pharaoh, you're going to have how many years of plenty? And he says, you're going to have seven years of famine. Right? And then Joshua comes on a little later and he says, okay, see that city Jericho with all those big walls in there. It's actually slanted so you can't even climb the walls. And it's an amazing city. And we had spies in there. And so guess what? Those walls are going to come tumbling down. But you're going to have to do something. I need how many priests? Seven. And those priests are going to carry how many trumpets? And they're going to walk around the city how many times? And what happened? The walls came tumbling down. Solomon's temple was completed in how many years? Seven. God's temple, really. Completed in seven years. Amazing. Amazing. And yet, you read this book and all the days of the week are numbered, but one's given a name. Which one is that one? Seven. The seventh? Name. That's his name. He attached to it. And then, when you had some of the prophets, you had Naaman who had leprosy. He was commanded to go dip in this river. How many times? And Elijah sent a servant out to check for rain. How many times? Psalm 119 in verse 164. It's not up here. I don't think you got that one, did I? I think I left that one out just for fun. Can somebody tell me? Ah! Seven times a day! Praise our God. I may have been around a little short on that.

Even in the New Testament in Acts when he started the church, he appointed deacons. How many deacons? Well, do I even have to say it? Seven. Seven. But I've made a point here with this scripture of we will have more about this magnificent number seven. But for the moment, let's leave the Bible out of it. I'm not going to throw it out. Just leave it out for a moment and let's observe, examine, and even scrutinize some in-depth evidence of God's fingerprints, you might say, and it's number seven on the world as we know it. How many days of the week are there?

But those seven were actually patterned after the named after the seven visible planets at the time that they were named. Not amazing. The time they wanted to name the days, there were only seven planets were visible. And why in the world, God didn't say it? How many seas are there? Sail to the seven seas. Okay. God did do that. Why are they there? Or maybe God did do it. They don't know. So we have, wait a minute, seven days, seven planets, seven seas, seven continents. Hmm. Who made those? You can guess. You know, there's seven metals in a periodic table of metals. Seven basic colors in a rainbow. And where did the rainbow come from? It's a rainbow. Seven pure notes on the diatonic scale for notes of singing. And then they came up with seven wonders of the world. Right? Look at this. This is just, this is leaving the Bible out of it. What do you have? Now you may say, well, that had something to do with it, but that was man's deal of naming them and putting names and time on them. God knew what he was doing. And even a major church today that has, let me go close to a billion people, they never even like the number seven, but yet they said there were seven deadly sins. And they hate the number seven, basically. They love that number one. And don't we all want to be number one except you in this room? We understand that magnificent number seven. The balance line, acid and alkaline, which I can tell you because my water, I watch water now, that I drink alkaline water all the time. The acidic levels, alkaline level, what is balanced? What is perfect? Seven. Seven. Where did that come from? Must have been the scientist. You know, almost all mammals have seven cervical vertebrates, and there's seven major receptors in the human head. Oh, well, now I'm stretching things. Am I not? But the seven phenomenon in the life of even today and yesterday, there have been books written. David Eastus wrote a book just called Seven, and he's not a religious guy by any means. But he studied this number, and he wrote an entire book and gave you all the examples of how seven is so prominent, how it just seems to permeate the entire world. And he was intrigued by it, even to the tune of why, when we've had it ever since telephones came in, there were seven numbers for most phones. Ever thought about that? Ever know why? Do you know what one of the first companies to get a phone number when they applied for it was Yellow Cab? Remember Yellow Cab? I don't think they're as big as they used to be. What was their number? How do you forget that?

But you know, it was amazing. They found out that the reason they gave seven numbers when they started them is the human mind, the human brain, which evolved from some slime out of the water, the human brain, for some reason, can remember a set of three and four. Very easy. Yeah, it's just they really can't explain it, but then they try to anyway. Is that amazing to you? But let me go back and walk back something and jump back into this. Jump back into the Scripture. In Hebrew, the word seven. Does anybody know what it means?

Very good. Man, you guys are smart. Complete, wholeness, perfection. That's what it meant. Diane cheated, obviously. But she's right! Complete, perfection, and wholeness. Does this not describe God?

And the thing is, his plan is reproducing himself. You know what Christ said in Matthew 5? 48? Become you perfect. Become like sevens!

You know, it's hard not to say God's number is seven. It is. It's really hard. Because it describes him. And his fingerprints on all of it, on seven.

And the amazing part is, no other number points you to God and God to you more than seven. Go with me. Ezekiel 20, verse 20. Ezekiel 20 is 20. Hello my Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between me and you that you may know that I am your God. Basically, you can say that God is our God. Leave that out. So it is a sign. Just like there's a sign in front of this place. If you have a business, there's a sign out there. Same word. It's used like hanging your shingle out there for business. And God said, this is my sign.

Now, I know God is omnipresent. I can be anywhere, anytime, any place, but I don't think tomorrow at this time in the room God's going to make his presence known. It's not his time. It's not his day, is it? Let's go to Exodus. Exodus 31. If I gave you that, I did give you that one. Surely, my Sabbaths, you shall keep it as a what? Sign. It is a sign. What should the sign have on it? Seven. That's us. That's him. That's us. That's him. That's us. How can you ever be confused? How does that not ring true? How does it just not fit in? Let's look at a couple other things.

Serendipity. You all know what it is. It is the serendipity that the Savior of the world, in Luke's genealogy, in case you want to look, you can go and count. I did count this myself. Serendipity, the Savior of the world in Luke, the very first chapters of Luke, that the 77th son listed is the Messiah, and that it goes from God in the book to God in the flesh. 77 just happened to be right? And when Christ came here, God in the flesh said what? How many times do I forgive my brother? Seven times? He said no! Seven times seventy. An infinite number. He used that to teach. Why? Because it was his number. He understood that. Even the Bible talks about how most people will live to be. What did he say? Seventy. Three scoring ten. Seventy. That's kind of the thing.

You better take care of yourself, this week. Ten commandments are the basis of law to the church, to people who study this Bible, even to the world, isn't it? I mean, a lot of our laws are based on the Ten Commandments. Our founding fathers knew that. But that the Ten Commandments by God. Now, I don't know if he planned this, but it's in the seventieth chapter of this book. Go through here seventy chapters and you get the Ten Commandments. Serendipity just happened to be, oh, I know people made that up. They had to go back and they changed things just so they could make it the seventieth. Really? Were they even thinking about that? And that the most powerful words, some of the most powerful words, I would have to say, in the entire New Testament are the words, This is my son, in whom I am well pleased. Those are the powerful words. We hope to hear those words someday, right? How many times were they spoken? Amazing guess. Seven times. God said that.

Baptism, seventy times. Not seventy-one, not sixty-nine, seventy times. It is mentioned in the Bible. The Passover, seventy-seven times. Numbers? Maybe they're just numbers. Let me show you a picture of a man named Ivan Pennin. Dr. Ivan Pennin. Has anybody ever heard of Dr. Ivan Pennin? Probably not. Oh, you have. Our smart young man in the back.

Dr. Pennin graduated from Harvard University. He even taught there. Ivan Pennin was a literary critic because he's so well-read. I think he died in the 40s or 50s. So he was well around the first century, first few decades. And Ivan Pennin loved mathematics. He studied them. He taught them. He also wrote a lot of articles, wrote books. But the one thing he was, he wasn't an atheist. He was an agnostic.

He didn't know whether God existed or not, and as he wrote in his book, he didn't really care. He had a good life, and so he wasn't really worried about it. Till somebody brought him a Bible and challenged him and said, I think you can find in the Bible that God does exist. He said, I don't care whether he exists or not. But I'll read your Bible, because I've read almost everything out there, and I haven't read that one yet.

But I want you to know I'm a literary critic, and I'll probably tear it apart. This man's life was changed because he was also into Giamatria, which is a study of words and letters and numbers attached to words. It's just something that he did. You could actually tell authors by their words and the numbers that equated with the words. You want to study that? You have more time than I do. Okay? He was a very intelligent guy. And so he started with the first opening chapters of the Bible.

Matter of fact, even the first verses. And he found in Genesis 1-1, he didn't, of course, he read five different languages, and he wanted to actually go back into the Hebrew. So this is how he did it. And when he did, he found out that the seven was the number kept showing up in the first verses.

And that seven was the number of letters in the first words. And then the number of letters was 28. And then the first Hebrew words translated had 14 letters. And the last four words had 14 letters. And he used the seven times two. And he went through and went through every single letter and everything. And he gets to the end, and he has, just out of the one verse, he has 30 distinct signs of seven in the very first verse of the Bible, chapter 1.

1-1. And then he went over to, he said, well, this is amazing, but something else I've got to know. So then he didn't read the entire Bible yet. He just went over to John 1-1. And he found the same thing. So then he had to read the Bible. Because he goes, how am I going to disprove this? Because I just read two verses and it already proved there's a number attached. So I've got to read the entire book to take it apart and say that my first hypothesis was wrong. In 1942, Ivan Panner wrote a book called The Inspiration of Scriptures, scientifically demonstrated. An amazing part about being at Harvard, a professor at Harvard, is he had other professors come to him and say, you can't believe this.

What's wrong with you? You're an academic. We don't believe in this. And finally, they quit coming because he would sit down for days and take them through the Bible. And he wasn't a theologian. But to him, the proof was there. Amazing story. Not really. How many Ivan Panner's has there been through time and in this world. I could go on and on with God's magnificent seven, but I want to finish where I started today. We have been divinely called to worship God, the Almighty God through his Son, our Messiah, our Savior, Jesus the Christ.

God has laid out for mankind a time and manner in which to worship. I didn't do it. United didn't do it. Seven-day Adventist didn't do it. God did it. It's not complicated. But mankind has basically said, no, they refuse. They don't need to worship him when he said. They can make their own rules. They can have their own numbers, and God allows them to have their numbers. As a matter of fact, at the end of time, he said, you need to be looking at a number. It's not my number. Know what that number is? He didn't say 777, did he?

God's seven annual holy days, the days of unleavened bread, seven days, picture, redemption for mankind, Jesus Christ fulfilling it in the center of it, four thousand year history of redemption and the sacrificial lamb coming in the form of a human being. And then we have the first fruits taking place on the seven, Frank said, seven times seven plus the next one, almost like the year, like the jubilee year, except Christ is there. Then we come to the last four that we are yet to even celebrate this year. And they are unique as the fall harvest in the seventh month, right, of the year, pictures the complete plan of God.

The last four show the rescue of humanity and the glorification of God's followers. God's holy day started out as a group of agricultural lessons to teach people about worshiping their Creator. It was that simple. Why? Because he's used physical lessons to teach spiritual principles. He still does it today. How many times have we learned something from the physical that we apply definitely to the spiritual minds? Probably at least once or twice a week. I go, ah!

I don't like V8, so I can't say that. But the holy days were given to point us and to the world the fulfillment and spiritual and edification of God and his magnificent seven holy days. Christ did partially fulfill those, but the best is yet to come, as we all know, and we'll go into that in August as I prepare and do more prophecy sermons and prepare us all for the holy days. But I want you to think back on the movie, the Magnificent Seven with Ewell Brenner, Steve McQueen. Who else was in there? James Colburn. Who's the tough guy? What's his name? Yeah, a short, stocky, tough guy. That was in there. Remember what I mean? Can't think of his name now. He was in the movie Death Wish and he made some of those movies. Charles Bronson. Wow. Had a blank. So he had all these stars. How many of you saw the movie? I mean, it's been 30, 40 years old. We only have a few. The guys will admit it. The girls are going, nah, not going to do that. But these were good-looking guys back then, Steve McQueen. But what was interesting is they did save the village. They did save the people. Cost some of them their lives.

But we have an even bigger job ahead of us than the Magnificent Seven. Go with me to Matthew 24 verse 22. Matthew 24 verse 22 will say, Unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be what? Saved alive.

No flesh would be saved alive. What do we read about in Revelation 19? We read about a king coming with his saints. To save humanity. Revelation 19. I'll save it because I want to go into it in detail later. But he's riding a horse, just like some of our pictures in the thing there. But you know, the amazing part is we don't just rescue a town or a village. We rescue the entire world. That is our destiny if we ride with him. If, and I hope I want to be a part of that Magnificent Seven that ride. Not the number of men, but the people, the men, the women, the saints of God, who ride because of the number seven. Because it should be our sign. It is God's sign, and it needs to be ours. So, brethren, I hope I've given you some things to think about. Some things to look over. Because I think most of you know why you're here. I think one of the keys is, I think we know what we need to be in the kingdom of God. And we had better be fans of the number seven. And we need to be part of God's Magnificent Seven.