The Sabbath, A Memorial Unto the Creator!

Someone has said, "I have a good memory, but an even better forgettery." In our sinfulness and frailty, we human beings are subject to forgetting things in the process of time, including the things of Elohim (God). Psalm 78:39 says He remembered them, but verse 42 says they remembered not Him. Scripture therefore is filled with many things that were done or made to be memorials.

The Sabbath was given to mankind at the close of creation by Yahweh God as a memorial of His creative power (Genesis 2:1-3). That is, He sovereignly chose it to be the thing whereby man would be linked to God by a weekly day of rest. And not just any day, but the seventh day, whereby man's loyalty to his Creator would be tested, and as a mark of man's sanctification (Exodus 31:13; Ezekiel 20:12). It begins at sunset on Friday, and ends Saturday evening (Genesis 1:5; Leviticus 23:32).

The Sabbath is not Jewish! The Messiah did not say it was made for the Jew; He said it was made for MAN! (Mark 2:27) It was made for man 2000 years before the first Israelite was born! The Sabbath was observed by the faithful prior to Sinai (Exodus 16:27-30). The phrase, "son of man" in Isaiah 56:2 , literally reads in the Hebrew text "the son of Adam." Further proof that God intended that all men should keep the Sabbath is seen in verses 6-8 . This passage indicates that Adam enjoyed God's Sabbath along with his family. Did not the patriarchs need a day so they could rest just like anyone else, and for worship, too? Who is there that would say they believe Noah and his family worked on building the ark seven days a week? No, God did not sanctify the Sabbath for his own benefit.

The Sabbath was then reiterated by God to Moses as a part of His moral law, written in stone with His finger, with a specific penalty imposed for disobedience (Exodus 31:14-15). A very few specific restrictions were added concerning gathering manna and sticks to kindle fires, which we observe by ceasing from our usual daily labors, but do not enforce in the literal sense with penalties (Hebrews 7:12). These added laws could not give life ( Galatians 3:21). From the law we are therefore able to learn that Sabbath-keeping itself cannot bring salvation to anyone.

In the heart of the Ten Commandments we read, "Remember the Sabbath...." Not something new, for how could they recall what they had never heard of before? This is a two-fold command for both rest and work, with an explanation attached. It lets us know that to disparage it or to observe some other day instead of the seventh, is to move us away from the only foundation to protect us from the onslaughts of atheistic, humanistic, evolutionary, thinking in denying the Creator God.

The Fourth Commandment was NOT changed at Calvary, the resurrection, or any other time! Nor do we now have "The Nine Commandments," as some seem to be teaching. (If only nine were perpetual, why were ten graven in stone?) Under the New Covenant with "separation of Church and state," the death penalty for Sabbath-breaking (along with blasphemy, idolatry, adultery, and often even murder, too) is not enforced today. Nevertheless, the divine penalties are still in force, and will be meted out to the Romish whore and her Protestant daughters (Revelations 17:5) for adultery with the world, names of blasphemy against Yahweh, murder of His saints, and for laying impious hands on the Fourth Commandment, as well! (Ezekiel 22:26, 31).

Why did the Roman Catholic "Church" in the Fall of 1996 officially endorse evolution? That question can be answered by the day she observes. Does she observe the seventh-day Sabbath, which is the memorial of creation? Of course not. At the council of Laodicea in the mid-360s she actually outlawed obedience to the Fourth Commandment, and executed Sabbatarians during the Dark Ages! She declares her authority apart from Scripture to switch the day of rest and worship, to the first day of the week. That is just like human nature because God said to work six days and then rest; man wants to take his rest day first and then work!

The real question, however, is this: Why must the leading (i.e., mis-leading) Protestant and so-called "radical" Anabaptist groups follow her treacherous example? As usual, the mainline churches are out of line with God's Word! They are like children running away from home, but carrying a picture of their mother in their pocket!

The Messiah arose on Saturday evening, yet most groups teach an "Easter" Sunday resurrection and a Good Friday crucifixion, thus nullifying the sign of the prophet Jonah in Matthew 12:40. That was the only sign given of the true Messiah! No one but Satan could be the author of such confusion. Truth is on the scaffold, and wrong is on the throne. It has been said that truth is so precious that it must be surrounded by bodyguards of lies.

John 5:18 does not say that the Messiah broke the Sabbath. He disobeyed the Talmud, but not the Torah! In other words, He broke only the Pharisees' man-made rules or "by-laws" which they had added to God's Word. He had no "anti-Sabbath attitude"! He merely corrected the abuses. Otherwise, how could a lawbreaker have become our Savior? He would have been a sinner, and unable to save even his own self! Furthermore, He worked every Sunday and is to be our example - for the Scriptures command six days of labor, not five, as our popular culture practices (see Ezekiel 46:1).

Sunday sacredness was nowhere supported or implied by John, Luke or Paul. The folly of applying the Sabbath law to the first day of the week was left for a later age. Look at Isaiah 58:13 and Matthew 12:8 to see what Yahweh's holy day is and of which day He says He is the Lord. There are at least 64 New Testament references to the Sabbath. Where did He ever say that that was to change? In fact, from the Savior's own words, we see that He came for no such purpose, and He warned us against even thinking such a thing (Matthew 5:17). Note this well: The first thing recorded in the Bible is work done on Sunday! (Genesis 1:1-5).

Isaiah 66:23 is a prophecy that proves which day God wills for both Jews and Gentiles to honor Him (see also Matthew 24:20). Exodus 31:13-16 says it is a sign for the children of Israel, but Isaiah 56:6 says it is for Gentile converts who love God also. One example of that is the Church at Antioch in Acts 13:42-44 . Why is there no "change" spoken of here to these Gentiles? Obviously the next day was Sunday. Wouldn't that seem like a convenient time for Paul to instruct these Gentiles to keep Sunday (which the Baal-worshipping heathens were already doing!) and to come back the next day to hear him preach? But Paul told the Gentile converts to follow him as he followed the Messiah. Paul's manner (Acts 17:2) was the same as the Messiah's custom (Luke 4:16), and he waited until the next Sabbath to come back.

Revelations 1:10 depicts the Sabbath in particular as a day for the blessing of spiritual revelation. Many have testified of the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits, which they have reaped from heeding Yahweh's command in this area.

Making "the LORD's day" to be Sunday is a bald-faced lie, firmly established by the dictate of the Roman emperor in A.D 321. It comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun-god, then adopted and sanctified by the Papal apostasy and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism (Jeremiah 16:19). The Reformation could have broken the back of the Catholic system had they followed through in this area at that time.

Hebrews 4:9 tells us the Sabbath rest is one safeguard against unbelief. Yes, mankind does seem to need help to be able to believe God! Even those Bible believers who are most zealous for the cause of a literal creation week will continue to unwittingly aid the causes of Romanism and Darwinism by upholding their long-cherished tradition. They claim that Sunday is in honor of the resurrection, yet we have already proven this to be a fallacy. Paul did not agree with that either, for he said the symbol of the resurrection is not a day of the week, but according to Romans 6:4 , it is water baptism when properly administered.

The Pharisees added to God's Word, and the Pope takes away. They are both on the devil's team! Paul forbids us from being "spoiled" (robbed) by men's traditions (Colossians 2:8, 16, 18, 22). Yet Rome must have the rule over them for they have obeyed the commandment of the emperor Constantine in accepting a counterfeit, forwarded the cause by upholding blue laws, and dishonor their Creator by trampling His Sabbaths underfoot! This is the very reason world judgment is about to happen again: "The earth is defiled . . . because they have changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant" (see Isa 24:1-6). Yahweh has no regard for obedience to human precepts, which do violence to His truth. Let us take heed that it be not said of us as it was of those religionists of old.

"In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mark 7:7). Salvation is promised only to those who will to do His will, for "love" without commandment-keeping and obedience is no love at all (Hebrews 5:9; Revelations 14:12, 22:14; Matthew 7:21, 22:37).

REVELATIONS 18:4-5 , "COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE. THAT YE BE NOT PARTAKERS OF HER SINS. AND THAT YE RECEIVE NOT OF HER PLAGUES. FOR HER SINS HAVE REACHED (reeked!) UNTO HEAVEN. . . " (NOTE - This is a reference to the tower of Babel).

Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions about Sunday

The vast majority of Christian churches today teach the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, as a time for rest and worship. Yet it is generally known and freely admitted that the early Christians observed the seventh day as the Sabbath. How did this change come about?

History reveals that it was decades after the death of the apostles that a politico-religious system repudiated the Sabbath of Scripture and substituted the observance of the first day of the week. The following quotations, all from Roman Catholic sources, freely acknowledge that there is no Biblical authority for the observance of Sunday, that it was the Roman Church that changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week.

In the second portion of this booklet are quotations from Protestants. Undoubtedly all of these noted clergymen, scholars, and writers kept Sunday, but they all frankly admit that there is no Biblical authority for a first-day sabbath.

Roman Catholic Confessions

James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.

"But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."

Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.

"Question:  Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?

"Answer:  Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."

John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies (1 936), vol. 1, P. 51.

"Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days."

Daniel Ferres, ed., Manual of Christian Doctrine (1916), p.67.

"Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?

"Answer. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of, and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.'

James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore (1877-1921), in a signed letter.

"Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the seventh day -Saturday - for Sunday, the first day? I answer yes . Did Christ change the day'? I answer no!

"Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons"

The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893.

"The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."

Catholic Virginian Oct. 3, 1947, p. 9, art. "To Tell You the Truth."

"For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the[Roman Catholic] church outside the Bible."

Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Converts Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957), p. 50.

"Question: Which is the Sabbath day?

"Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.

"Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

"Answer. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."

Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About (1927),p. 136.

"Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday .... Now the Church ... instituted, by God's authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday."

Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic Church Extension Society (1975),Chicago, Illinois.

"Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts:

"1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.

"2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws.

"It is always somewhat laughable, to see the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of Sunday, of which there is nothing in their Bible."

T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18,1884.

"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic Church says: 'No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.' And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church."

Protestant Confessions

Protestant theologians and preachers from a wide spectrum of denominations have been quite candid in admitting that there is no Biblical authority for observing Sunday as a sabbath.

Anglican/Episcopal

Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism , vol. 1, pp.334, 336.

"And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day .... The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it."

Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments , pp. 52, 63, 65.

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday .... into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters.... The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday."

Bishop Seymour, Why We Keep Sunday .

We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy Catholic Church."

Baptist

Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a paper read before a New York ministers' conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner , Nov.16, 1893.

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week .... Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament absolutely not.

"To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question . . . never alluded to any transference of the day; also, that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated.

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history . . . . But what a pity it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!"

William Owen Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day , p. 49.

"There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance."

Congregationalist

Dr. R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments (New York: Eaton &Mains), p. 127-129.

" . . . it is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath - . . 'Me Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday .... There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday."

Timothy Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Ser. 107, vol. 3, p. 258.

" . . . the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath."

Disciples of Christ

Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist, Feb. 2, 1824,vol. 1. no. 7, p. 164.

"'But,' say some, 'it was changed from the seventh to the first day.' Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed! It is all old wives' fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.'

First Day Observance , pp. 17, 19.

"The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change."

Lutheran

The Sunday Problem , a study book of the United Lutheran Church (1923), p. 36.

"We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen that the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one with the other, but for a time celebrated both."

Augsburg Confession of Faith art. 28; written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther, 1530; as published in The Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Henry Jacobs, ed. (1 91 1), p. 63.

"They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, a shaving been changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!"

Dr. Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church Henry John Rose, tr. (1843), p. 186.

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday."

John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday , pp. 15, 16.

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel .... These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect."

Methodist

Harris Franklin Rall, Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p.26.

"Take the matter of Sunday. There are indications in the New Testament as to how the church came to keep the first day of the week as its day of worship, but there is no passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day."

John Wesley, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., John Emory, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25,vol. 1, p. 221.

"But, the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, he [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken .... Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages; as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other."

Dwight L. Moody

D. L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting (Fleming H. Revell Co.: New York), pp. 47, 48.

The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God Wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?"

Presbyterian

T. C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, pp.474, 475.

"The Sabbath is a part of the decalogue - the Ten Commandments. This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution . . . . Until, therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand . . . . The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath."