This great moral Law of 10 commandments is brought to view
by the message of the third angel (see Revelation 14:9-12). This is
the Law which the remnant of the seed of the woman were keeping in the last
days when the dragon made war upon them (see Revelation 12:17). This
moral Law will insure, to all those who keep them, the right to enter into
heaven and to eat of the tree of life (see Revelation 22:14).
Surely, these two laws should not be confounded. The
moral Law was magnified, made honorable, established, is holy, just, spiritual,
good, and royal; while the other was carnal, shadowy, burdensome, was
abolished, broken down, taken out of the way, nailed to the cross, changed, and
disannulled on account of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.
It is true that the precepts of the moral Law are variously
interspersed throughout the books of Moses and mingled with the precepts of the
ceremonial law. But this can in no way cause them to be included as part
of this ceremonial law and also done away with. The moral Law is as
eternal as God, while the ceremonial law was only in force until Christ died on
the cross. Those who rightly divide the word of truth will never confound
these essentially different laws, nor will they apply to God's royal Law the
language employed respecting the handwriting of ordinances.
That the Ten Commandments are a perfect code of themselves,
appears from several facts: God spoke them with His own voice; and it is said,
"he added no more" (see Deuteronomy 5:22), thus showing that He had
given a complete Law. He wrote them alone on two tables of stone with His
own finger, another proof that this was a complete moral code (see Deuteronomy
9:9-11). He caused these alone to be placed under the mercy seat in the
second apartment of the sanctuary (see Exodus 30:6; Hebrews 9:4-5), an evident
proof that this was the Law that made an atonement necessary because it had
been broken. And God expressly calls what He thus wrote on the tables of
stone, a Law and commandments (see Exodus 24:12).
Both laws had Sabbaths, yet there were clear differences
between them. The seventh day Sabbath originated in Eden before
sin as part of God's immutable Law, and always occurred on the seventh day
which we today call Saturday. While the feast day sabbaths originated
after sin as part of the ceremonial law, and could take place on any day of the
week. The seventh day Sabbath was written on stone by God's own finger.
While the feast day sabbaths were written on cloth, or paper, or skin, by
Moses' finger. The seventh day Sabbath, along with the 9 other
commandments, was placed in the ark directly underneath the mercy seat with
God's glory and presence above (see Exodus 30:6, 40:20,34), signifying that
they were to be enforced permanently and were unchanging. While the feast
day sabbaths were placed in the side of the ark (see Deuteronomy 31:26),
signifying that they were to be enforced only temporarily until their purpose
was accomplished. On the seventh day Sabbath no cooking was to be done,
but all food was to be prepared and cooked on the sixth day or the preparation
day (see Exodus 16:23). While on the feast day sabbaths you could prepare
and cook your food (see Exodus 12:14-16). And on the seventh day Sabbath,
no work could be done--not even sticks were to be gathered for the preparation
of food (see Numbers 15:32-36). While on the feast day sabbaths work
could be done in gathering various tree branches (during the feasts of
tabernacles) in order to build booths for shelters (see Leviticus 23:34-40).
So there is a clear difference between God's unchanging
fourth commandment of the moral Law to keep holy the seventh day Sabbath, and
the temporary types and shadowy feast day sabbaths of the ceremonial law.
The seventh day Sabbath was "made for man" before he had fallen
in sin; hence it could not be a type or shadow pointing forward to Christ's
death and, hence, could not have been nailed to the cross, but continues
pointing backward to the beginning of this earth's history and to the Creator
of us all. But the feast day sabbaths, as well as all the other types of
the Jewish economy, came into existence after man had fallen and needed a
Saviour; hence they were a shadow pointing forward to redemption and were
indeed nailed to the cross (see Colossians 2:14).
Paul even states that God's people are to continue keeping
the Sabbath of the moral Law after Christ's death, but nowhere does he state
that we need to keep the sabbaths of the ceremonial law! (see Hebrews 4:4-11).
It should be plain to all who wish to see that the doing away
with the handwriting of ordinances of the ceremonial law leaves in full force
every precept of the royal Law, and also that the law of shadows pointing
forward to the death of Christ expired when that event occurred. The
breaking of the moral Law was that which caused the Saviour to lay down His
life to save you and me from sin. Thus the continued and unchanging
sacredness of the 10 commandments, including the fourth commandment of the
seventh day Sabbath, may be judged by the fact that God gave His only Son to
take its curse upon Himself and to die for our breaking of it.
Eleventh Reason:
"The Sabbath was only given for the Jewish people at
Mount Sinai, and was replaced in the Gospel Dispensation with Sunday" (see
Exodus 20:8-11).
First of all, the Seventh day Sabbath was given by God before
the Jewish people were born!
"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.
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 2:2-3.
Also, when God led His people out of Egypt, and fed them
manna in the desert, they were told to gather each morning enough manna for
that day only, and any unused portion became wormy and stank. But on the
sixth day, or Friday, they were to "prepare that which they bring in and
it shall be twice as much as they gather daily....And they laid it up until
morning...and it did not stink...So the people rested on the seventh day."
Exodus 16:5, 24, 30. This plainly shows that the people of God had a
knowledge of His seventh day Sabbath even before the law was given on Mount
Sinai!
So God's seventh day Sabbath was clearly in existence before
Judah, before Jacob, before Abraham, and even before the flood. Hence for
over 2000 years before the first Jew walked the earth, the Sabbath was in
existence! Thus the Sabbath of God was not a Jewish institution and
could not pass away when the Gospel Dispensation arrived!
Twelfth Reason:
"John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, which was
undoubtedly the first day of the week" (see Revelation 1:10).
But we ask: On what basis can it be assumed that this proves
the point it is alleged to prove? This text, it is true, furnishes direct
proof that there is a day in the Gospel Dispensation which the Lord claims as
His; but is there one text in the Bible which testifies that the first day of
the week is the Lord's day? There is not a single one.
Yet,
there is indeed a record that God claimed a certain day as His and reserved it
to Himself as His Sabbath. "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.
"For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on
this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works....There
remaineth therefore a rest (the keeping of the Sabbath) to the people of
God" Hebrews 4:4, 9.
"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath,
from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a
delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine
own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then
shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the
high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isaiah 58:13-14. (see also
Exodus 16:23, 20:10; Mark 2:28).
Then the seventh day is the true rest day which God reserved
to Himself when He gave to man the other six, and this day He calls His holy
day. This is the day which the New Testament declares the Son of man to
be Lord of. There is but one day that the Bible designates as the Lord's
day, and it is none other than the Sabbath of the fourth commandment--Saturday.
Since it is clear that there is absolutely no Biblical
support for any of the reasons given for the change of God’s Sabbath from
Saturday to Sunday, the question needs to be asked: When was this change made?
And, more importantly: Who made this change?
"Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary
change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy
day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. ‘The day of
the Lord’ was chosen, not from any direction noted in the Scriptures, but from
the Church's sense of its own power....People who think that the Scriptures
should be the sole authority, should logically...keep Saturday holy." St.
Catherine Church Sentinel, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995.
"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." John Laux, A
Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, 1936 edition,
vol. 1, p. 51.
"The Catholic church for over one thousand years before
the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day
from Saturday to Sunday....The Protestant World at its birth found the
Christian Sabbath too strongly entrenched to run counter to its existence; it
was therefore placed under the necessity of acquiescing in the arrangement,
thus implying the (Catholic) Church's right to change the day, for over three
hundred years. 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." James Cardinal
Gibbons in the Catholic Mirror, September 23, 1893.
"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."
Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine,
p. 50, 3rd edition, 1957.
So we find that the Roman Catholic Church has changed God's
Sabbath day. But on whose power or authority was God's Sabbath of the
fourth commandment changed from Saturday to Sunday? Roman Catholicism
proudly declares:
"The authority of the church could therefore not be
bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the Church had
changed...the Sabbath into Sunday, not by command of Christ, but by its own
authority." Canon and Tradition, p. 263.
"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." James
Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Md. (1877-1921), in a signed letter.
"From this we may understand how great is the authority
of the church in interpreting or explaining to us the commandments of God - an
authority which is acknowledged by the universal practice of the whole
Christian world, even of those sects which profess to take the holy Scriptures
as their sole rule of faith, since they observe as the day of rest not the
seventh day of the week demanded by the Bible, but the first day. Which
we know is to be kept holy, only from the tradition and teaching of the
Catholic church." Henry Gibson, Catechism Made Easy, # 2, 9th
edition, vol. 1, p. 341-342.
"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." Catholic Virginian, October 3,
1947, p. 9, article "To Tell You the Truth."
"Written by the finger of God on two tables of stone,
this Divine code (ten commandments) was received from the Almighty by Moses
amid the thunders of Mount Sinai...Christ resumed these Commandments in the
double precept of charity--love of God and of the neighbour; He proclaimed them
as binding under the New Law in Matthew 19 and in the Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew 5)....The (Catholic) Church, on the other hand, after changing the day
of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made
the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's
Day." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, "The Ten
Commandments", 1908 edition by Robert Appleton Company; also the 1999
On-line edition by Kevin Knight, URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04153a.htm), Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New
York.
"...Had she not such power, she could not a 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 of the week, a change for which there is no Scriptural
authority." Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism On the Obedience Due
to the Church, 3rd edition, Chapter 2, p. 174 (Imprimatur, John Cardinal
McCloskey, Archbishop of New York).
Since the Roman Catholic Church claims her own power and
authority to change the worship day of God from Saturday - the seventh day of
the week to Sunday - the first day, and not the power and authority of God as
found in His Scriptures, then Sunday is purely and only a worship day created
by the Roman Catholic Church and not God! And the Catholic Church is not
afraid to admit this!
"Is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and
to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the
observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? 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." James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (1917
edition), p. 72-73 (16th Edition, p 111; 88th Edition, p. 89).
"They [the Protestants] deem it their duty to keep the
Sunday holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do
so. They have no other reason....The observance of Sunday thus
comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the divine law of
Sabbath observance....The author of the Sunday law...is the Catholic
Church." Ecclesiastical Review, February, 1914.
"The Sunday...is purely a creation of the Catholic
Church." American Catholic Quarterly Review, January, 1883.
"Sunday...is the law of the Catholic Church alone..."
American Sentinel (Catholic), June, 1893.
"Sunday is a Catholic institution and its claim to
observance can be defended only on Catholic principles....From beginning to end
of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly
public worship from the last day of the week to the first." Catholic
Press, Sydney, Australia, August, 1990.
But many will say: “So what if Rome changed God’s worship day
to Sunday! What difference does it really make? Besides, I cannot
possibly be lost just because I worship God on Sunday instead of Saturday - the
seventh day.” But what does God say?
At Mount Sinai God Himself came down and proclaimed His holy
law--the ten commandments. The fourth commandment, dealing with God's Sabbath
day, is at the very heart or central part of this law.
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it
holy. Six days shalt thou labor, 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...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." Exodus 20:8-11.
Notice that God began this commandment with the word
"Remember". This is because God knew that there would be an
attempt to mislead people into forgetting to keep holy the seventh day as God's
Sabbath. But more than this.
The Sabbath commandment contains the three things necessary
to make the law of a King valid. It contains the NAME of the
lawgiver--Lord; His official POSITION--Creator; and His DOMINION--heaven
and earth. These three things are necessary in any royal seal of a King.
Thus the seventh day Sabbath contains the seal of God which He has put in
His law to make it valid. For those who keep this seventh day Sabbath
holy unto God, will God place His seal in their foreheads (see Revelation 7:3).
This is because the Sabbath is a distinguishing sign to all the world
that we love and serve God and not man! So says God Himself:
"Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a
sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that
sanctify them....And hollow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me
and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Ezekiel
20:12, 20.
Since the seventh day Sabbath contains the seal of God, and
is the distinguishing sign between God and His people, then what does the Bible
call the first day of the week or Sunday, which is the day made holy by Rome?
"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and
poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the
name of the beast, or the number of his name." Revelation 13:16-17.
History shows conclusively that the Roman Catholic church is
this Beast power listed in Revelation 13:1-10, as well as the Little Horn power
of Daniel 7 . This Little Horn power was prophesied to think to change
God's law (see Daniel 7:25)! So what is this mark of Roman Catholicism or
the Beast? As the seal and sign of God is the keeping holy of His seventh
day Sabbath, then the mark of the Beast must be the keeping holy of Sunday
after you know that it is not God's worship day! And Rome plainly admits
this!
"Sunday is our mark of authority...the
church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof
of that fact." Catholic Record of London, Ontario, Canada,
September 1, 1923.
"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change
(from Saturday Sabbath to Sunday worship) was her act....And the act is a
mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things." H.F.
Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons.
Now members of the Catholic Church have been taught to
recognize the authority of the Pope and their church as being greater than the
authority of God, and thereby feel perfectly satisfied in observing the
commandment of Rome in keeping holy the first day of the week. But the
members of the various Christian Churches deny the authority of the church of
Rome. Yet they continue to worship on Sunday--a day for which the
Catholic church alone claims authority to make holy. Thus, whether or not
Christians will admit it, by continuing to worship on Sunday they are obeying
the commandment of the Roman Catholic Church and its Pope, and not the
commandment of God!
"It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists,
Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them
anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman
Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the
Catholic Church." Priest Brady, in an address reported in The News,
Elizabeth, New Jersey, March 18, 1903.
By obeying the commandment of Rome and not of God, Sunday-keeping
Christians are bowing down and paying homage to the Pope of Catholicism, and
not to the God of heaven--and Rome clearly understands this!
"It was the Catholic church...which has transferred this
rest to Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Therefore
the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of
themselves, to the authority of the Catholic church." Monsignor
Louis Segur, Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, p. 213.
"Protestants...accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the
day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change...In
observing the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the
church, the Pope." Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950.
"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." father T. Enright, C.S.S.R.
of the Redemptoral College, Kansas City, in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas,
February 18, 1884, printed in History of the Sabbath, p. 802.
Therefore, any Christian who knowingly continues to worship
on Sunday--the first day, while they know that the Bible Sabbath of the Lord is
on Saturday--the seventh day, thereby show that they love a follow a lie of
man, instead of loving and following the truth of God! They also
show that they are content to serve, worship, and bow down to the authority of
the Pope of Catholicism, and not to the Lord God of the Bible. Thus
they are in grave danger of receiving the mark of the Beast and being lost,
instead of receiving the seal of the living God and gaining everlasting life!
And why will they be lost? Because they are following a commandment
of the Roman Catholic church, and not the commandment of God; they are
following the word of men founded in tradition, and not the word of God founded
in the Scriptures! And Rome clearly understands this.
The Roman Catholic church blatantly challenges all
Christian peoples to either give up Sunday, go back to the Bible alone as
their authority and thereby keep the seventh day or Saturday holy, or give up
the Bible alone as their sole foundation for doctrinal truth, and come fully
back to their mother Roman Catholic Church!
"Sunday is founded, not on scripture, but on tradition,
and is distinctly a Catholic institution. As there is no scripture for
the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week,
Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday and thus leave Catholics in
full possession of Sunday." Catholic Record, September 17, 1893.
"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." Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic Church
Extension Magazine, USA (1975),Chicago, Illinois, "Under the blessing
of the Pope Pius XI"
"The arguments...are firmly grounded on the word of God,
and having been closely studied with the Bible in hand, leave no escape for the
conscientious Protestant except the abandonment of Sunday worship and the
return to Saturday, commanded by their teacher, the Bible, or, unwilling to
abandon the tradition of the Catholic Church, which enjoins the keeping of
Sunday, and which they have accepted in direct opposition to their teacher, the
Bible, consistently accept her (the Catholic Church) in all her teachings.
Reason and common sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of
these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or
Catholicism and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible."
James Cardinal Gibbons, in Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893.
Now the question is for you to settle: Do you want to be a
candidate to receive the mark of Catholicism by following the lie of worshiping
on Sunday--the first day of the week and lose eternal life? Or do you
want to be a candidate to receive the seal and sign of God by following the
truth and worshiping only on Saturday--the seventh day Sabbath and gain
everlasting life through Jesus Christ? This great solemn decision is now
up to you to make, and praise God that you have such a choice!
But when all the reasoning, theories, and excuses for keeping
Sunday holy instead of the Sabbath of the Bible are thoroughly examined, the
following Scriptures plainly declare what God's people are to do in this great
controversy:
"We ought to obey God rather than men." Acts 5:29.
"Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they
may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the
city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and
murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."
Revelation 22:14-15.
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear
God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For
God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it
be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13-14.
May God help us with the grace, strength, and courage to keep
His commandments thereby showing our allegiance solely to God's authority in
serving and worshiping only Him. May God help us not to follow a lie, nor
to give our allegiance and service to the authority of any church, nor to the
Pope, nor to any other man, in the place of God.
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