Program 42: Cycles of Seven in Nature

Cycles of Seven in Nature

Program 42 Files
MP3 Audio	PDF Document

 

Lord of the Sabbath

Program #42

Cycles of Seven in Nature

Kenny Kitzke

LawstSheep Ministries

 

Shabbat shalom!  May you have peace this Sabbath day.  This is a unique Lord of the Sabbath program.  Today, I am addressing ONLY those who both keep holy the weekly, seventh-day Sabbath AND also follow the self-proclaimed Lord of the Sabbath. 

If you are listening to this program, or reading its script, chances are pretty good that you believe in Y’shua HaMashiach, Yeshua the Messiah.  You realize that His name was NOT “Jesus.”  He is the anointed of YHVH, the pre-incarnate Word of Elohim, the only begotten Son of the most High, whose holy name I will not attempt to pronounce.  It was through the spoken Word of Elohim by which all things made were made.

This includes the seven-day week.  It is a cycle of time made for man and ordained by Elohim.  You are blessed to know that according to the Eternal’s plan, that man was to work for six days and then rest on the seventh day; just as He did. 

Every week that you repeat this cycle you bring glory to our Creator.  In every Sabbath that you observe and keep holy, you are the kind of worshipper that Elohim seeks.  You are worshipping Elohim in His spirit and in His truth.  You realize that the first day of the week is a tradition of “religious” men and is NEVER commanded for worship in the Bible.

And, I realize that you are a very small audience today.  Perhaps you are part of a remnant of Jewish Sabbath keepers who have received Y’shua as the Messiah of Israel?  Perhaps you are a most peculiar group of Christians who have now received Y‘shua as the Lord of the Sabbath and wish to rest and worship unto YHVH on the day He commanded? 

I believe that both the knowledge and practice of this truth of Elohim is a personal blessing.  But, it comes with a price.  The price is being out of the mainstream of the worshippers of the Elohim of Abraham in whom all the nations of the world were to be blessed.  You, brethren, are part of those blessed children of Abraham, whether natural or adopted, and heirs to the promise that YHVH made to him.  Halleluyah to the Lamb!

In this program I will be speaking about things you have probably never read about or  heard spoken about in a lifetime of synagogue or Church sermons.  Listen all day to your favorite Christian radio program and I will be shocked if you would hear the information you are about to hear.  Elohim has revealed Himself in man and in nature in many ways.  I think you will hear a new revelation today. 

You don’t need a Bible to know that He exists and is our glorious Creator and sustainer.  Our very breath of life is in His hands.  We can sense this as we read Psalm 19: 1:

The heavens declare the glory of Elohim; and the firmament shows His handiwork.

 

This shows evidence that Elohim exists before the eyes of the heathen if they merely look up at the heavens and the firmament in which our earth exists.  This is sometimes called the general revelation of the mighty and majestic Creator of the heavens and the earth.

It helps us understand why David says in Psalm 14: 1:

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no Elohim.”

 

I can’t help but be amused as many of my scientific and atheist friends thrash about in their imaginations about how all that they see came into being naturally.

As we continue reading in Psalm 19: 7-8:

The law of Elohim is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of Elohim is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of Elohim are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of Elohim is pure, enlightening the eyes.

 

Here we see “specific” revelation from Scripture to His people that goes beyond the general revelation of Elohim to mankind.  It is with this special revelation that we, as believers in Y’shua and YHVH, are truly blessed.  For Scripture reveals the law, the testimony, the statutes and commandment of Elohim to us.  How else would we personally know YHVH and His will for our lives?

As Sabbath keepers we both hear and obey Elohim‘s commands.  Does it matter?  Yes.  In this life, you know it matters just from keeping the 24-hour weekly Sabbath rest that we cherish.  But, I believe it will matter also in the eternal life to come when the rewards are given to the saints.  We are warned to believe and obey in order to see and enter the kingdom of heaven.  We see this same sentiment in Psalm 19: 11, referring to this special revelation of His statutes and commandment:

Moreover by them Your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.

 

Being blessed like this with the revealed truth of Elohim is wonderful.  But, we have an obligation to go beyond relishing His truth.  Notice in Psalm 96: 2-3, there are some special tasks that we, the special children of Abraham and Elohim, are expected to do:

Sing to YHVH, bless His name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.  Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.

Do you see what I see?  This Old Testament command is about as close to the great commission that Y’shua gave to His disciples as you can get.  And, while it doesn’t say from Sabbath day to Sabbath day, it could very well mean just that.  Similar language is used elsewhere in Scripture.  In Isaiah 66: 23, for example, we find the prophet talking about the future kingdom of Elohim:

And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, says YHVH.

While you have a grasp of the truth of the seven day weekly cycle and how it is to be used to worship YHVH and rest our own mortal flesh, there have been amazing new discoveries of seven-day cycles throughout the natural world.  It further verifies that the finger of Elohim is in the creation and design of all things.  And, this is especially evident in how humans function as they keep His Sabbaths holy.  Please note we are not to keep His Truth under a bushel.   We are to teach His glory to all peoples on the earth.

While we may believe that the seven-day repetitive cycle that covers all the earth’s calendars indeed came from the creation week, this would obviously trouble the agnostic and atheistic scientists of today.  Unwilling to accept the Bible’s version of the first week, they have been left to propose some “cultural” origin that began in ways and at times not quite understood.  It reminds me of their speculative search for a natural origin of man.

But, the search for scientific truth, apart from the general or special revelation of YHVH, has led to some troubling facts for the scientists.  Witness the growing realizations of complexity and intelligent design in even a one-celled creature.  Similarly, recent scientific discoveries reveal innate body rhythms of about seven days which now call their cultural outgrowth model into question.

The relatively new science of chronobiology has uncovered some totally unexpected facts about living things, as Susan Perry and Jim Dawson report in their book The Secrets Our Body Clock Reveal. "Weekly rhythms -- known in chronobiology as "circaseptan rhythms" -- are one of the most puzzling and fascinating findings of chronobiology.

Circaseptan literally means "about seven." Daily and seasonal cycles appear to be connected to the moon.  This we know to be Biblical even if we are ridiculed by scientists.  Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the average 29.5 day menstrual cycle of a woman is the same as the average number of days in the moon cycle?  But what is there in nature that would have caused weekly rhythms to evolve?

I quote researcher and author Jeremy Campbell, "At first glance, it might seem that weekly rhythms developed in response to the seven-day week imposed by human culture thousands of years ago.  However, this theory doesn't hold once you realize that plants, insects, and animals other than humans also have weekly cycles. . . . Biology, therefore, NOT culture, is probably at the source of our seven-day week."

Campbell also summarizes the findings of the world's foremost authority on rhythms and the pioneer of the science of chronobiology: "Franz Halberg proposes that body rhythms of about seven days, far from being passively driven by the social cycle of the calendar week, are innate, autonomous, and perhaps the reason why the calendar week arose in the first place."

Can you believe it?  Our human body rhythms of about seven days are innate says a foremost scientist.  From where in the world do you suppose that those innate life rhythms in humans have come?  Did some particles or atoms or chemicals randomly put them there?  Did some fish pick a cycle of seven days when coming up out of the sea and crawling onto the dry land?  Are you beginning to feel a bit smarter and wiser than our unbelieving scientists in knowing the answer from the Word about life‘s deepest questions?

Remember what Paul told the Corinthian disciples in 1 Cor. 1: 26-27:

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.  But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise,

 

You and your Sabbath keeping may seem foolish to the wise and scholarly and the religious leaders and scientists of the world, but I say, stick to your Bible and confound them all with the Word and wisdom of YHVH.

In his chapter "The Importance of Time," Jeremy Campbell reports:  "These circaseptan, or about weekly, rhythms are one of the major surprises turned up by modern chronobiology.  Fifteen years ago, few scientists would have expected that seven-day biological cycles would prove to be so widespread and so long established in the living world.  They are of very ancient origin, appearing in primitive one-celled organisms, and are thought to be present even in bacteria, the simplest form of life now existing."

One of Franz Halberg's amazing discoveries is that of an innate rhythm -- about seven days -- occurring in a giant alga. Because this microscopic cell resembles a graceful champagne glass, the alga (plant) is popularly known as mermaid's wineglass. When this "primitive" alga is subjected to artificial schedules of alternating light and dark spans of varying length over many days, this single intact cell is somehow able to translate all that manipulation of light and darkness into the measurement of a seven-day week!

As Campbell says, this inherent rhythm has to do with the internal logic of the body, not with the external logic of the world.  Many more examples could be given.  Involved experimentation with rats, face flies, plants and other life have revealed circaseptan rhythms similar to that of the mermaid's wineglass.

Chronobiology is continuing to document just how highly rhythmic we humans are.  Most of our many ticking clocks are difficult to detect; they operate just below our conscious awareness.  Innate and hidden in our cell structure, the mysteries of biological time have waited for the resolving power of modern computers to appear.

Just as the electron microscope allowed scientists to peer deep into the structure of living cells, computer "magnification" and analysis now make visible internal biological clocks we didn't even know existed.  The most surprising of them all is the circaseptan.  Campbell explains that "certain biological clock systems have been discovered only through the use of sophisticated computer programs, and when they are brought to light in this way, often surprise us.  By showing us these invisible restrictions on our temporal freedom, scientists modify our knowledge of human nature, and they do not always do so in predictable ways. They are drawing a new map of the temporal anatomy of body and brain, and the map tells us truths we could not know otherwise."

A myriad of synchronizing rhythms give substance to the well worn phrase "harmony of the body."  The "loudest" of the body's oscillating frequencies is the 24-hour cosmic cycle of day and night -- and until recently this circadian rhythm received most of the attention.

Surely, no Bible reader will miss the connection between the 24-hour day and the cycle of the earth rotating about the sun, just as the hand of the Almighty determined from the beginning.

The surprise appearance of an internally generated seven-day rhythm, independent from all environmental influences, provides chronobiologists with intriguing possibilities for a new understanding of how the body's complex orchestra of rhythms works.

Our bodies are carefully designed for self-protection even in matters of time. On one hand we are an orchestra of rhythms, on the other our bodies demand stability and sameness --an automatic pull to homeostasis (the maintenance of a beneficial equilibrium, a self-regulated norm).  Campbell explains: "The two regulatory systems, one imposing sameness in time, the other providing orderly change, are complementary rather than being in conflict.  A body function alters in a rhythmic fashion, and homeostasis stabilizes the altered state of that function.”

"The clocks are able to generate regular periodic variations because homeostasis resists random, irrelevant variations.  Both systems collaborate in maintaining the special time structure of the body rather than simply surrendering to the time structure of the environment."  We organize time on our own terms and to our own advantage.

My dear friends, and especially all Sabbath keepers, it seems that as science discovers more and more about nature, and especially the nature of man, the more they confirm the truth of the Bible---things we hold true by faith in the Word.

Mankind has always been aware of rhythms--they surround us. They are well established in the creation.  We live with daily rhythms of tides, light and darkness, monthly rhythms of the moon, seasonal rhythms of birth, growth, harvest, hot and cold, and annual cycles of the sun, migrations, floods and drought.  We have also observed cycles in our bodies which interact with those around us such as our daily sleep rhythms, daily temperature and blood pressure fluctuations.

But what is now being scientifically discovered in chronobiology about the rhythms in humans is simply astounding.  Franz Halberg, the brilliant scientist and founder of modern chronobiology, first began his experiments in the 1940s and headed the Chronobiology Laboratories at the University of Minnesota.  He offers us this rather detailed description of his field.

"Chronobiology is the eminently interdisciplinary science of interactions in time among metabolic, hormonal, and neuronal networks. It involves anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, physiology, and pharmacology, at the molecular, intracellular, intercellular, and still higher levels of organization. The compounds coordinating a time structure -- proteins, steroids, and amino-acid derivatives -- provide for the scheduling of interactions among membrane, cytoplasmic, and nuclear events in a network involving rhythmic enzyme reactions and other intracellular mechanisms. The integrated temporal features of the processes of induction, repression, transcription, and translation of gene expression remain to be mapped . . ."

More simply put: Chronobiology is the study of how living things handle time.  Chronobiology is no longer a minor science.  It is now being studied in major universities and medical centers around the world.  There are chronobiologists working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as well as for the National Institutes of Health and other government laboratories. Chronobiology is becoming part of the mainstream of science, and it is changing our way of looking at life and time.  "Don't confuse the science of biological rhythms with the quackery of biorhythms," warn Perry and Dawson. "The two are as unlike each other as astronomy and astrology."

The deeper we investigate the inner workings of life, an even more complex, intricate and absolutely marvelous display of design begins to appear. Out of the mind-numbing complexity of life a certain organizing rhythm starts to surface.  The millions of living parts begin to respond to a rhythmic resonance broadcast on certain set frequencies. These parts innately know to tune their receivers to the proper sympathetically vibrating frequency -- their beat. Just as we tune our radios and music suddenly springs to life, every living cell has imbedded in its primal genetic material a rhythm, a clock, a beat, a frequency, a resonance that helps it get in sync to live and function as designed.  Now we discover that the beat which all life is tuned to is SEVEN!

"In Franz Halberg's view," summarizes Campbell, "a central feature of biological time structure is the harmonic relationship that exists among the various component frequencies.  A striking aspect of this relationship is that the components themselves appear to be harmonics or sub harmonics, multiples or submultiples, of SEVEN, a number that has played a disproportionately large role in human culture, myth, religion, magic and the calendar."

My purpose is not to make you experts in chronobiology.  There is so much more that could be said about the cycles of seven days that seem to protect our bodies from serious diseases and stress.  My purpose is to show you the hand of our Creator in the seven day cycle---not just from scripture, but from the best scientific knowledge now available to us. 

If you have adopted the seventh day Sabbath cycle, I want to encourage you to not only continue in that observance by faith, but to let others know how much the seventh-day Sabbath must mean to our Creator.  By keeping the Sabbath holy, you bring glory to your Creator.  Praise YHVH!  Praise Y’shua!

It is so exciting, I would like to praise Elohim in song.  Let us listen again as Melissa Ising sings Verse 2 and the chorus of “Remember the Sabbath Day…to keep it holy.”

Verse 2:

Six days to work, six days to do our labor;

Christ said He made the Sabbath just for man.

The seventh day of rest, the Lord he gave us

The Sabbath, to remind us all of His plan.

 

Chorus:

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;

A rest for the people of God, a true delight.

The Son of Man, He reigns as Lord of the Sabbath,

And shows His brethren how to do what’s right.

 

I know that Sabbath keepers AND followers of Y’shua are out there in the radio audience.  You come in many assorted flavors.  Some call themselves Seventh-Day Adventists.  Some are Seventh-Day Baptists.  Some are from Messianic Jewish congregations.  Some may be from the United, Global or International Churches of God or other offshoots of the Worldwide Church of God founded by Herbert Armstrong.  Others are from independent Sabbath-keeping congregations, fellowships and home churches of various origins and vintages.  Some are from Christian denominations who have seen the light on the seventh-day Sabbath and are now on-fire for it and for Christianity’s Hebrew roots.

Many of you have written to me about the Program.  Some have called me.  Some have come to visit me at my home.  Some have come to a Family Sabbath Keepers convocation.  Some want to put the Lord of the Sabbath series on their own Web sites.  Some have made contributions, both large and small, to LawstSheep Ministries for the Program.  There are too many of you to mention personally.

What these dear Brothers and Sisters in Y‘Shua, and hundreds of thousands of others, have realized is that the seventh-day Sabbath is the holy day for the worship of YHVH established by Him and commanded for US.  They show their love for Him by keeping His Commandment.  He seeks worshippers who will worship Him in His Spirit and in His Truth.  We are tuned in to His frequency of SEVEN!

If you have been listening to, or reading, this novel Sabbath related series and finding it worthwhile, I do want to hear from you.  If you have not contacted me, or the radio station carrying the program, would you please take a few minutes to do so today?  In a few weeks, I must decide whether to rebroadcast the Lord of the Sabbath series next year.

If you are a regular listener, or reader, you will know that I have shared freely what I have learned about keeping the Sabbaths and the Feasts of YHVH holy.  I do so out of love for Him and for those who desire to keep His commandments and follow the example of Y’shua.  I have nothing to sell.  I have no web site with a pay-pal button for contributions.

I ask for no contributions for myself.  I have worked diligently most of my life (always six days and unfortunately in prior time, seven days a week) and have been blessed with adequate financial security.  But, in all honesty, the cost of broadcasting the Program is too large for me to fund myself.  So, if you can help with a contribution, now is the time to do it.  If you can’t give an offering, I still want to hear from you.  Those able to support LawstSheep Ministries are encouraged to do so by knowing that many others besides themselves are benefiting from their blessed generosity.

If the Spirit of Elohim leads you make a donation to spread this grateful message of praise and thanksgiving for the seventh-day Sabbath, and for the Lord of the Sabbath , you can simply make out a check payable to Kenny Kitzke for LawstSheep Ministries.  Mail it to the address given at the end of the program.

I pray that YHVH will be gracious to you for being obedient to Him and following His Son, Y’shua, and sharing the truth of our amazing Creator.  Please, let me know if you have been listening.  Also simply pray for me and this ministry if you would like to see this series broadcast again next year to current Sabbath keepers around the world and to those who are seeking the joy and peace that remembering the seventh-day can bring.