The Sabbath

FOURTH COMMANDMENT
EXODUS 20 : 8 - 11

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For 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, and hallowed it."

"The true import of the Sabbath is seen in its origin and relation to the worship of God in all dispensations. The Sabbath was instituted as the crowning act of God, at the close of his creative works. It immediately followed man's creation and the ordering of his physical condition. Its nature shows its design--a spiritual rest, or communion with God. Jesus, its Lord, said it was made for man. And as such, it was observed by the patriarchs. When God's law was formulated and lithographed at Sinai, the Sabbath was defined as covering the family with all its members, including servants and guests. When worship was organized, it was made fundamental in the organization. The prophets taught its sacredness. Jesus, its Lord, made it fundamental in his kingdom. His apostles used it in their labors. To this day it is regarded as indispensable to the church and its work.

The diversity of opinions and practices at the present demand a revision. Most that has been taught from the pulpit and press has been sectarian, argumentative, with a polemic spirit, largely ignoring its spiritual character. Very little has thus been secured to the church by the controversy."
(James Bailey, Milton, WI, 1888)

As stated throughout this web site, NO WHERE in the word of God has the Sabbath been changed from the seventh day of the week (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday). It was changed by man through Satan's church, the biggest religious lie on earth, the Roman Catholic "Whore of Babylon" (Revelation, Chapter 17), in worship of their paganistic Sun god. Not surprisingly, the Roman Catholic church has not changed this, their "doctrine of devils"...and neither have the vast majority of churches that otherwise call themselves "Christian". Why?

To keep the Sabbath holy is STILL A COMMAND of God -- God's Law to man. And although it is no longer written in stone, God's Law SHOULD now be written in the hearts of all that know and love the One that came to fulfill it. It is NOT a request or suggestion -- it is 'The Law'.

And if someone once again writes to me and says, "The fourth commandment was only for the Jews", or that it was just "Jewish", I might say to them; So were the other nine...just Jewish. So was the book you call the Bible...Jewish. And so is Jesus...Jewish -- So what's your point? And by the way, the sabbaths, the Jewish feasts (PLURAL), are NOT the same as THE Sabbath; the Fourth Commandment. And please don't show the world your Biblical ignorance, as some are doing on the internet, by quoting Colossians 2:16 to try to justify your worshipping on Sunday. This passage of Scripture was directed to the Jews, who met on the true Sabbath as did ALL the early Christian Churches, NOT the pagan Gentiles who were still worshipping their SUN god on SUN-day. In other words, the Apostle Paul is telling the early church of CHRISTIANS at Colossae, don't let the pagan's try to judge you because of your traditions "in respect of an holyday...or of the sabbath days (plural) -- i.e., The Feast of Passover (Pesach), The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Hag HaMatzah), The Feast of Firstfruits (Yom HaBikkurim), The Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), The Feast of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth). Again, ALL of the early churches met on the true Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, NOT the perversion which came about 300 years later, that the "Pagan-Christians" now so desperately want to cling to and otherwise justify. Satan is certainly working hard in these last days...is he not?

But there is only One that you will most assuradly answer to...and this is what He has to say about it:

"Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen..."

(Jeremiah 10:2)

Those 10 (not nine and one was changed), Commandments, even to the "least" of them, still ALL apply to ALL that call themselves Christians today and...for ALL time as we may now know it.

The words of our Lord Jesus in His sermon on the mount contained the fundamental doctrine of His kingdom. "Listen" now to what He said at the beginning of this, the most famous sermon in the history of mankind:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever shall break one of the least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven."
(Matthew 5:17-20)

Well, even the scribes and the Pharisees kept the Sabbath holy -- Think about it...

And please email me if you have questions.

Why Are You Substituting a Pagan Day For God's Day?

The substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath is not a thing which the Catholic Church either denies or attempts to conceal. On the contrary, it frankly admits it, and indeed points to it with pride as evidence of its power to change even a commandment of God. Read these extracts from Catholic publications:

The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, the work of the Reverend Peter Geiermann, C.S.R., received on January 25, 1910, the "apostolic blessing" of Pope Pius X. On this subject of the change of the Sabbath, this catechism says:

Ques.--Which is the Sabbath day?
Ans.--Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Ques.--Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
Ans.--We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday. --Second edition, p.50.

A Doctrinal Catechism, by the Reverend Stephen Keenan, was approved by the Most Reverend John Hughes, D.D., Archbishop of New York. It has these remarks on the question of the change of the Sabbath:

Ques.--Have you any other way of proving that the church has the power to institute festivals of precept?
Ans.-- 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. -- (3rd American Edition, p.174).

An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, by the Reverend Henry Tuberville, D.D., of Douay College, France, contains this question and answer:

Ques.--How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
Ans.--By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therein they fondly contradict themselves...

The Faith of Our Fathers, by Cardinal Gibbons says this:

"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." --Edition of 1893, p.111.

Catholic Press of Sydney, Australia:

"Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles...From beginning to end of Scriptures there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first." August 25, 1900.

Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, by Monsignor Segur says:

"It is the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church." --Edition of 1868, Part 3, sec. 14, p.225.

Catholic Mirror, of Baltimore, MD, 1893:

"The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day Saturday to Sunday. The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church as spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world."

The Library of Christian Doctrine set forth the following argument between a Catholic and a Protestant on pages 3 and 4 of an article within that publication entitled, 'Why Don't You Keep the Sabbath Day?': The Catholic unleashes a ruthless backhanded attack on the Protestant with the following statement...(reader, would you have an answer...?):

"You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! but by whom? Who has the authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, 'Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day,' who shall dare to say, Nay, thou mayest work and do all matter of worldly business on the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead? This is a most important question, which I know you can answer.
You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which the Bible has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments; you believe that the other nine are still binding; who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered."

And Jesus said:

"If ye love me, keep my commandments."
(John 14:15)

What kind of worship does the Saviour call that which is not according to God's commandments?

"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
(Matthew 15:9)

By whom was the Sabbath made?

By Christ
NOTE: This conclusion is inevitable. If all things were made by Christ, and without Him was not anything made that was made, and the Sabbath was one of the things that was made, then it follows that the Sabbath must have been made by Christ. This being so, the Sabbath must be the Lord's Day.

What did God do in the beginning on the seventh day?

"And 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."
(Genesis 2:2)
NOTE: If all things were made by Jesus Christ, then He, with the Father, rested on the first seventh day from all His labour in the work of creation.

After resting on the seventh day, what did God do?

"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 2:3)
NOTE: And inasmush as this blessing and this sanctification of the day were a part of the making of the Sabbath, as well as the resting upon the day, these also must have been done by Christ; for the Sabbath was made by Him.

How much honour is due to Christ?

"That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him."
(John 5:23)
"I and my Father are one."
(John 10:30)

NOTE: In keeping the Sabbath, then, we honour Christ equally with the Father.

Did Christ keep the Sabbath?

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read."
(Luke 4:16)
"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love."
(John 15:10)

Did Christ's followers keep the Sabbath after His death?

"And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment."
(Luke 23:56)

Did Christ's followers observe the Sabbath after His resurrection?

"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,"
(Acts 17:2)
"But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down."
(Acts 13:14)

"And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath."
(Acts 13:42)

"And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God."
(Acts 13:44)

"And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither."
(Acts 16:13)

" After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks."
(Acts 18:1-4)

On what day does John say that he was in the Spirit?

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,"
(Revelation 1:10)

What day does the commandment say is the Lord's?

"But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:"
(Exodus 20:10)

By whose Spirit did the prophets write?

"Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."
(1 Peter 1:11)

What does the prophet Isaiah, speaking for God through the Holy Spirit, call the seventh-day Sabbath?

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day;..."
(Isaiah 58:13a)

Does Christ anywhere in the Scriptures ever claim any other day of the week than the seventh as His?

He does not.
NOTE: We do not need to speculate as to which day is the Lord's, if we will but take the Word of God for our guide and not that of the Catholic "church" or those which have followed her example. It was for this loyalty that John was banished to the isle of Patmos.

If John, therefore, referred to a day of the week, on what day must he have been in the Spirit?

The seventh day.
NOTE: No other day in all the Bible is claimed by God as His day. During the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Christian era, when apostasy came in like a flood, men, without any warrant or command of Scripture, thinking to do honour to Christ and despite to the Jews who crucified Christ, began to neglect the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and to honour the day of the week on which Christ rose from the dead, the first day, as "the Lord's day", until finally the Sabbath was almost wholly lost sight of, and the Sunday quite generally took its place. But there was no more warrant for this change in the divine and unchangeable law of God than there was for other errors and changes which crept into the professed "Christian" church during this same time, such as abstaining from meat on Friday in honour of the crucifixion; Mariolatry, or the worship of the Virgin Mary; the mass; purgatory; indulgences; prayers for the dead; saint-worship; and the human vicarship of Christ. There was no more divine authority for one than for the others. All came in through apostasy. The Bible knows but one true and living God, one Lawgiver, one Mediator between God and man, one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, one body, one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism, and one Sabbath.

"There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
(Ephesians 4:4-6)

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