The question is about - Sabbath or Sunday?

There are those who insist the Bible Sabbath is still binding. Failure to keep it, they claim, is sin - and the punishment is Death for eternity!

Now that is a pretty serious claim!

Few take it seriously but that does not disprove or dismiss the challenge. Have you ever seriously looked into this question concerning the truth of the Sabbath?

If someone tells me my car is on fire, I’m not going to laugh at him and refuse to take it seriously. I’m going to go and see if it is true just to be sure! If he’s wrong, then at least I shall know my car is safe.

I learned years ago that it can be very dangerous to carelessly assume, or just take anything for granted. It’s much wiser and safer to get all the facts, and then make an informed decision.

We have became lazy and we know God only by “hear-say”, by preaching or testimony, and not like Job 42, where Job say’s “I have seen God and now I know Him”.

One’s Life for eternity is much more precious than a car.

A few years ago I learned in Bible College, the principles of “the Hermeneutical filter”. This tool shows you to look for the Bible truths. (and on this Hup page there is a explanation of the filter. Feel free to read it)

According to my understanding of the filter and then taking the Ten Commandments through the filter, believers are still bound to keep the Bible Sabbath - Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. So where did the Sunday worship originated?

I was shocked and angered that we keep a different Sabbath than the one mentioned in the Bible. To me this made more questions - plenty of them!

I went to my wife and told her my findings, she immediately agreed that she known for some time that Saturday was the true Bible Sabbath. “You can’t tell me that all these churches could be wrong!” I asked.

I was challenged to look into this question - to get all the facts!

I was urged into serious research. I prayed in search of the truth of this burning issue. I could not ignore the questions, it had invaded my world!

Anyway, one may reason, what possible difference can it make on which day we have church, or whether we observe the Sabbath?

We are under grace! I started asking, “Why do we keep the Sunday and what are we supposed to do on that day?”. Why must we keep the Sunday, where do we find this in the Bible?

Some answers were that we must go to church on the Sunday, the first day of the week, when Christ rose from the dead, ….. “Yes and then?” Most couldn’t answer me on that one. Why?

These questions and more needed to be answered!

First of all, in a world where established, organized Christianity observes Sunday, where perhaps most people do not seriously observe any day as really sacred, how can we know?

Is there any Supreme Authority, with the power of life and death over our eternity, with Power to declare, and enforce the right answer?

By what authority do Jews observe the Sabbath; Christians observe Sunday; Muslims, Friday; Sabbatarians, Saturday; and others, no day? Is there any authority for observing Friday, or Sunday, or Saturday?

It certainly is apparent all do not recognize the same authority.

Lets look for truth in God's word, (the Bible)!

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible

Exodus 20:8 [Earnestly] Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (withdrawn from common employment and dedicated to God). Exodus 20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
Exodus 20:10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, your domestic animals, or the sojourner within your gates. Exodus 20:11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it [set it apart for His purpose].

Introduction

Never before in the Christian Church history, has there been such a need to return to basics, back to the Ten Commandments.

Not forsaking the Grace of God, we need to be obedient out of love. Our churches are filled with false teachings that create false converts, simply because we have abandoned doing what Jesus taught us in His word.

The disease must be diagnosed before the cure is offered to the patient, or it will, understandably, never be rectified.

None of the Ten Commandments has been so argued over and suffered such scorn and abuse as the fourth Commandment.

Surely it is considered the least of the commandments. When considering the other nine, theologians have little to argue over except variations on what they consider might lead to spiritual death. Nearly all “churchianity” claims that we should obey the other nine, but they almost universally ignore the Sabbath as irrelevant, as having been replaced by Sunday.

Most people observe their “Sabbath” in one way or another on the day of their choice. Is it Biblical?

When challenged on the true Bible Sabbath, they will argue that Yeshua (Jesus) broke the Sabbath causing it to fall away or that it has changed.

Or they say that because the Disciples gathered on the First day, the day of the resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus) and therefor this is the true Christian Sabbath (First day) and not the Bible Sabbath (Seventh day or Saturday as we know it today).

The argument is that the Bible Sabbath is only for the Jews and not for the believers, or they say we are now under Grace, not law.

With this argument it is almost as if I first have to kill someone in order to be forgiven and to come under grace. The same with the Sabbath, do I have to break the Sabbath before I can come under Grace?

Remember!

Remember to keep the Sabbath; doesn’t “Remember” sound as if we might at some point forget to observe it?

The Amplified Bible adds a word before Remember, namely “Earnestly Remember”! The word Earnestly is explained in the Webster Dictionary as follows:

• Warmly; zealously; importunately; eagerly; with real desire.
• Value

We must not forget that the Sabbath has the same value as the other nine Commandments.

Romans 7:6: But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
Romans 7:7: What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. (NKJ)

Exo 20:8: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

But notice the rest of that same sentence “to keep it Holy.” The word “keep” means to preserve in the same condition or manner. You can’t keep cold water hot, you can only keep hot water hot.

You can’t keep an unholy day holy.

The only weekly day God ever made holy is the Bible Sabbath. It is utterly impossible to keep Sunday or Friday or any other day holy because God never made them holy, and man has no power to make anything holy.

The first day is not made Holy because Jesus rose from the dead, or any other significant event that took place in History. Only one day is dictated and made Holy by God for His pleasure.

Ezekiel 22:26 Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.

Now study this a little further:

“. . . for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you” (Exodus 31:13).

What tremendous meaning is packed in that portion of scripture! Yet most people read right past it, failing to get the vital truth it contains!

Notice! Here is the purpose of the Sabbath. “. . . for it is a sign . . . .” What is a sign?

A sign is a badge, symbol, or token of Identity for all men who accept God as Creator and Law giver.

There is no Command in the Bible to requiring us to observe the first day as the Christian Sabbath. The new Testament did not change the Sabbath or its name to the day of our Lord.

The Sabbath is still the Sabbath.

Many Christians have inaccurately come to the conclusion that our Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) blotted out the instructions of His heavenly Father that were given to us through Moses. If this were the case, then Messiah would have been a disobedient son who disrespected His Father’s commandments and treated them as a vile thing.

But the record of scripture tells us that Messiah "Yahu’shua" was obedient even unto death:

Philippians 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Why would our Messiah blot out his own Father’s instructions if He was an obedient son?

The day of our Lord is the day that our Lord rose from the dead, but it did not replace the Sabbath. When one enforces the Sabbath observance to be observed on Sunday then it becames a “so called blue law”.

A blue law is a man-made law.

Churches err in this teaching, for the Scripture has in no way ordained the first day in the place of the Sabbath. None can proclaim that Sunday is their Sabbath. On whose authority was that decision made?

The reason, that the first day observance is kept, is the same reason that the church observes many other “observances”. It is not because the Bible states it as gospel, but because the church has enjoined it.

If a murder was committed,

The law dictates that the murderer be condemned to death, first by the authority, (the law of the land) and then secondly by God’s judgment, (10 Commandments). If we repent, our soul will be saved by God but our lives will be taken by the Authority.

• If we look at the same Principal
  “thou shall not kill” in the Old Testament; if found guilty, the party would have been taken out of the city and stoned to death, and spiritually condemned to hell. If we take the Sabbath on the same principle, when guilty, the sentence was, stoned, death and hell.
• If we look at the same example again,
  New Testament, Jesus taught that if you think of killing your brother, it is as if you have already done it, so here the Commandment has been given a “Spiritual” connotation. It can condemn you Spiritually if you do not repent, but there is “Grace, or a chance to be saved, if you repent”.

In the Old Testament, if you broke the law, it was death, and Hell.

So are we breaking the law by not keeping the Sabbath or even thinking that we are keeping the Sabbath by keeping it on our own day not in His Word?

Are we then breaking His Commandment?

Is it not the same principle than that of the rest of the Commandments?

God is dictating His will to us and He is making the rules, not us, and if we decide to change the rules to suit ourselves, do we not invent our own Religion with man made rules?

If we worship God, we must worship Him (in Spirit and truth), for what and who He is. Only God can reveal what He is like in one sense, and in the Second Commandment God tells mankind: “Don’t try to tell Me what I am like. I will tell you what I am like! “It is important that you correctly understand that I will accept no representations of Me.”

If we worship something that is not in God’s names or character or one of His attributes, or commandments, we are creating and worshipping our own god. That is called idolatry, or False Religion.

So in this light, is it important not to kill, not to steal etc. as the rest of the Ten Commandments teaches us, including the Sabbath.

Does it make any difference which day we observe - or whether we keep the Sabbath?

Does the Bible establish Sunday as the Lords day?

Was the Sabbath given for the Jewish people only - while Christians are commanded to keep Sunday as the Lord’s day?

There is no scriptial evidence of that, but Yes! The early christians gathered together on the first day. There is also evidence that shows that they still gathered in the synagogues on the Sabbath. In our Churchwe gather together every Tuesday for Home Cell (church). Does that make it the legitimate Sabbath?

Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made.”

It is one of those things that were made. It had to have a Maker. Who, then, made the Sabbath and what is it’s purpose?

Yeshua (Jesus) made it and it was made for someone.

Now today the prevalent idea seems to be that it was made “for the Jew.” But what did Christ Himself say? He said it was made “for (all) man”! (Mark 2:27)

I am convinced that it is important to gather on the Day God dictates to Man, us (namely Jew and non Jew, the believers), on the Bible Sabbath and not on our own day. Why?

First the Bible Sabbath was given by God as an eternal covenant and it is the only day that the Lord has declared blessed and made Holy, even before the Law was given to Moses.

What does it really matter, to keep “A” day holy?

“Moses! Moses!” . . . put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is Holy ground” (Exodus 3:2-5).

Now suppose Moses had been like most people today. He probably would have argued:

“Well, Lord, I don’t see where it makes any difference where I take off my shoes. I don’t want to take them off here, on this ground. I’ll wait and take my shoes off a kilometer down the way.”

The ground a kilometer away was not Holy. Why did it make any difference whether Moses took off his shoes - or where?

Here is why! the ground where he then stood was holy. He was required, by God, to treat Holy ground with a respect he did not treat other ground. And why? Well, what made that particular bit of ground holy? God’s very presence was in the ground! God is Holy! God’s presence in that bush made the ground around it Holy!

In the very same manner, God’s presence is in His Sabbath. He rested on that first Sabbath to put His presence in that day! This made it a Holy time! Four thousand years later, Yeshua (Jesus) put His Holy presence into the Sabbath - He went into the synagogues as His custom was!

Yeshua (Jesus Christ) is still the Same, today, as He was yesterday, and shall be forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Do you believe that? Your Bible is an all Authority in our life?

If so, then Yeshua (Jesus) is, He has not changed - He is still putting His presence in His Holy day that He has set there for man, from the very creation to the end of time - the Bible Sabbath!

Moses prophesies the consequences of disobedience and of not observing the Sabbath.

“At that time the land will pay off its Sabbaths all the days of its lying desolated, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will keep Sabbath, as it must repay its Sabbaths. All the days of its lying desolated it will keep Sabbath, for the reason that it did not keep Sabbath during your Sabbaths when you were dwelling upon it” (Leviticus 26:34-35).

Here, we learn that the length of the punishments upon Israel and Judah was proportioned to the number of Sabbaths that were not observed. For example, the 70 years of captivity in Babylon would therefore have been equated to a total of 490 Sabbaths having been missed or not observed.

Order, both in nature and in human life, depends upon right relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing. That’s why it is so essential for God to have His proper place in our lives. When He does not, everything is out of order.

We are right when, and only when, we stand in a right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position and we will be punished acordingly.

So let us begin with God, above all, before all is God; first in sequential order, above in rank and station, exalted in dignity and honor. As the self-existent One He gave being to all things, and all things exist out of Him and for Him. “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created” (Rev. 4:11, KJV).

While the Sabbath is not been observed, one might wonder what will happen to an entire World that increasingly is moving away from a Holy God and His commandment of a weekly day of rest?

In a frenetic world given over to the primacy of commerce, a weekly day of rest is fast disappearing, whether the Hebrew Sabbath, the Christian Sunday, the Muslim Friday … or any day for that matter.

Now, that day is commonly becoming the weekly shopping day.

While the Christian thinks he is not bound to observe the Sabbath (though many Christians do observe Saturday as their day of rest and worship, convicted by there conscience) as they think they are not subject to God’s command, “live now in grace” and has changed it to the first day of the week - the day that Christ rose from the dead and that the New Testament church met for fellowship and teaching, the Commandment still stands above all arguments, it did not expire.

By ignoring the Sabbath, could it still be true that there are direct consequences for societies that do not observe the weekly rest day?

State of the world today is witness to something drastically wrong.

God himself observed a rest day. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, He rested from all the work of creating that He had done” (Genesis 2:2-3).

If then, God, who is The Creator, chose to rest on the seventh day, would it be surprising that the He demands us to do the same from the begining, even before the law, and if we do not, don’t you think He has the power and might to judge the world for not obeying this commandment.

If you look around you, what day is the most wicked day of the week?

Yes, it is obvious, Friday night and Saturday.

Why? (Sabbath starts at sundown Friday to sundown Saturday)

Because the devil perverts everything that is Holy. The devil knows the true Sabbath, that God has blessed it and made it Holy (he is the father of all lies).

He always counterfeits everything that the Lord does, making it unholy.

• Keeping the Bible Sabbath (not for salvation, like the Jews, but in love and in His grace) is Symbolic of our salvation (out of Egypt our sinful past), and also the Eternal rest that we shall enter into at the last trumpet blast.

• The word of God is the will of God, to obey better than sacrifice, to please the Lord by keeping the Lord’s statutes.Keeping the Law cannot save us in any way.
• Jesus paid the price for our salvation.
• Keeping the Law is about pleasing God and realizing that the Law, like the Sabbath has its purpose.
• The Law was set in place to show us that we need God’s grace and to guide us through life.
• Keeping the Law keeps us out of trouble, not out of hell.
• The Sabbath was in effect before the law was given, but was not called the Sabbath yet.
• It was given to humanity as a rest and Holy day from the beginning.
• Why should we be offended if our neighbor honors God by keeping a day that is not in keeping with our own understanding?
• Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days:
• Judge no one, so that you are not judged.

The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt God in all His commandments, we step out of the world’s parade. We shall find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world and increasingly so as we make progress in the holy way. We acquire a new viewpoint; a new psychology that will formed within us; a new power will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.

Our break with the world will be the direct outcome of our changed relation to God. For the world of fallen men does not honor God. Millions call themselves by His name, it is true, and pay some token respect to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honored among them.

Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who or what is above, and his true position will be exposed.

“Those who honor Me I will honor” (1 Sam. 2:30), God said that ancient law of the Kingdom stands today unchanged by the passing of time or the changes of dispensation. The whole Bible and every page of history proclaim the perpetuation of that law.

“If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor,” (John 12:26), Jesus said, tying in the old with the new and revealing the essential unity of His ways with men.

• It is to Honor God the Father,
• to recognize Jesus as our Creator, (in six days He created the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day He rested) [not evolution]
• to build relationship with our Triune God by ministering to Him through praise,
• thanksgiving, to worship in the congregation of the brethren,
• to be separated from this world system and to rest in His salvation,
• to remember our Everlasting Covenant with Jesus our Creator,
• to acknowledge His love,
• to acknowledge His creative and redeeming power in our lives,
• to recognize Jesus as the King of Peace in our lives,
• to celebrate our eternal rest.

The Sabbath is also kept as a remembrance of our deliverance from bondage.

Matthew 22:36-40 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? (37) Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. If you love God, You will seek to please Him. (38) This is the first and great commandment. (39) And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (40) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

In love God created man in His own image. God Loves human beings. God wanted the humans He create to be happy to have peace, and to enjoy life in security and to have abundant living. In order to make such a happy state possible, God set in living motion, the spiritual laws which form the very way to every physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing to avoid sorrow, suffering, anguish, insecurity, boredom, emptiness, frustration, violence and death.

These spiritual laws provide the way to happy, vital, interesting and joyful living. By obeying them, they are set into motion so that you can obtain the full blessing it contains.

I love Yeshua (Jesus) more than anything and want to worship Him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH.

By the above study, I have decided (I am convicted in my heart of hearts, by the Holy Spirit) to get in line with His Word (the Bible) and to Do the Will of the Father, to celebrate on the Sabbath (Saturday), the day He has Set there for me to obtain His maximum blessings when doing so.