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Is the Sabbath important?

Today one of the main reasons people do not look on the Sabbath as being relevant is because it does not appear to be a sin or to be that important. Why did God place such a seemingly unimportant matter right in the heart of the Ten Commandments? It is obvious that we should not lie or steal or murder and that to do so is morally wrong and unloving. On the other hand, people do not see the Sabbath as breaking a law of love. Sadly, most Christians do not understand the real meaning and purpose of the Sabbath anymore. Before continuing, it would be highly beneficial to first read the mark of the beast and the history of Sun-day worship for very enlightening information on how Sunday worship actually began 2000 years before Christ and was sun and Satan worship.

Satan does not want us to know the truth about the Sabbath as it is actually a glorious day filled with blessings. It is a day that God blessed and sanctified (which means to make Holy and set apart). God “set apart” this day in love for us so we could spend personal time with Him because He is Holy and it is for intimate Holy time with Him. God says His Sabbath is a “PERPETUAL covenant” and “a SIGN between me and the children of Israel [which we are, Gal 3:28-29] FOREVER” Exodus 31:16-17. If we love God with all our heart then this is a day that we will desire to devote fully to fellowship with God and others, not doing our own thing but things of God, not doing our own pleasures but doing pleasurable things with God. The following verse explains this well and please note that we are to call it a “delight”, not legalism or a burden.

Isaiah 58:13-14 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shall honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shall you delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.”

Now understanding why God instituted the Sabbath of the Lord, how could we call His request to spend this blessed Holy time with Him a burden or legalism? God created us solely for a loving relationship with Him and others but we sinned by eating from a tree we should not have. As a result, God sent His only begotten son to die for us to pay the penalty for our sins and sadly, many want to call His sacrifice a license to keep on sinning. Is this how we repay that selfless act of love on God and our Saviour's part?

To understand the truth on the Sabbath and why there are so many misunderstandings, please study this table carefully and give the statements that follow some serious thought and consideration.

Sabbath of the Lord

Ceremonial Sabbaths
Spoken by God personally (Exodus 20:1, 8-11) Spoken by Moses (Exodus 24:3)
Written in stone by God Himself (Exodus 31:18) Written by Moses hand on paper (Exodus 24:4)
Placed inside the Ark of the Covenant (Deut 10:5) Stored on the outside of the Ark (Deuteronomy 31:26)
Breaking the Sabbath is sin (1 John 3:4) These were kept because of sin (See Leviticus)
It is a law of love (Matthew 22:35-40, Isaiah 58:13-14) They were not love (Colossians 2:14, Galatians 4:9-10)
It is a law of liberty (freedom) (James 1:25; 2:10-12) They were bondage (Galatians 4:9-10, Colossians 2:14)
Was established before sin (Genesis 2:1-3) Were established after sin (Exodus 20:24)
Was made at creation (Genesis 2:1-3) Were made after Sinai (Exodus 20:24)
The Sabbath is for everyone (Mark 2:27) Only for the children of Israel & Jews (Read Bible)
God calls it MY Sabbath (Exodus 31:13, Ezekiel 20:20) God calls them HER sabbaths (Hosea 2:11, Lam 1:7)
The Sabbath is eternal (Exodus 31:16-17, Isa 66:22-23) Were nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:14, Eph 2:15)

 

Some Facts:

Some Questions:

The Sabbath truth:

God did not put His Sabbath with the ceremonial sabbaths that ended at the cross because His Sabbath is not a ceremonial sabbath. God did not put His Sabbath with the ceremonial sabbaths that were only for the Jews because His Sabbath is for EVERYONE. What kind of God would place a temporary law in an eternal law or a law that is not a moral law of love in a law that is a moral law of love? God is not the author of confusion. He put His Sabbath in His law of love because it is a law of love and a very special one that is a SIGN it is God we love, worship and belong to. Note that scripture shows God's character of love equals God's law of love.

The Sabbath from beginning to eternity

If it can be demonstrated that the Sabbath has existed since creation and will be kept throughout eternity, then clearly there can be no doubt that the Sabbath is valid now. If the Sabbath is an unchanged Commandment as per all the Ten Commandments, then we should find Paul and the early Church keeping the Seventh day Sabbath. If this can be demonstrated, then this alone would also prove that the Sabbath was not changed or abolished. So the question is; can we demonstrate this? Note carefully the following.

A custom is something you do religiously and without failure. What was Paul's CUSTOM and EXAMPLE while establishing the early Christian Church? Notice in the following verse that this is a Jewish synagogue and that Jews have all through history, without change, worshipped on Saturday as they still do today. Acts 17:1-2 “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 Then Paul, as his CUSTOM was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,” The Jews and Pharisees which Paul was since CHILDHOOD have ALWAYS kept Saturday as the Sabbath. Acts 26:4-5 “My manner of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own nation at Jerusalem, all the Jews know. 5 They knew me from the first, if they were willing to testify, that according to the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.” This is proof conclusive of Saturday Sabbath keeping AFTER the cross and also applies to Gentiles. Acts 18:4 “And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews AND the Greeks.” Acts 13:42-44 ,“And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath … And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” It was not only Paul's custom and example but that of Jesus also and He is our perfect example. Luke 4:16 “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.”

The Sabbath has existed since creation when God added the Seventh day to the week with the one and only purpose of a Sabbath rest day and so God also blessed and sanctified it for Holy use. This is the only reason we have a seven day week today. This was done before sin had entered the World and was part of God's perfect plan. Most Christians do not know that the word translated “rested” in our English Bibles in Genesis 2:3 is actually “shabath” in the Hebrew and means Sabbath. Here is the word Sabbath right at creation. In reference to the future destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, Jesus says in Matthew 24:20, “And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.” Jesus would not say this unless the Sabbath was still going to be kept after His death. The gospel of Luke states in Luke 23:56 that when the body of Christ was being prepared, “they rested the Sabbath day according to the Commandment.” Luke's gospel was written 30 to 50 years after the cross and Luke still shows that the Commandment is unchanged. If it were changed, Luke would have undoubtedly told us since it is one of the Ten Commandments. Isaiah also prophesied in Isaiah 66:22-23 that, “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make … and from one Sabbath to another, shall ALL flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.”

The Bible says where there is no law there is no transgression [Romans 4:15 “Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.”] so the Commandments had to exist from the very beginning or Cain could not have been guilty of murder, and since the Sabbath was sanctified and made Holy before sin at creation and the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments, it had to be kept by Adam and Eve. It was also kept by Abraham, [Genesis 26:5 “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”] it was kept in the exodus (Read Exodus 16) from Egypt before the Ten Commandments were given when God tested His children to see if they would keep THE Seventh day as per the Commandment. It was kept by the Jews, it was kept by Jesus, it was kept by Paul, it was kept by the Apostles, it was kept by the early Church by both Jews and Gentiles, and this is also verified by Jesus who showed it would be kept in 70 AD when the temple was destroyed. History also further proves this by the fact that reliable unbiased history sources show that it was still being kept at 120 AD where some Christians first changed to Sunday to avoid persecution for Judaism. History shows the day was finally changed by Constantine in 321 [First Sunday Law enacted by Emperor Constantine - March, 321 A.D. “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” Source: Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; trans. in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol.3 (5th ed.; New York: Scribner, 1902), p.380, note 1.] This was done through paganism and in favour of Sun worship. [“The Church made a sacred day of Sunday ... largely because it was the weekly festival of the sun; for it was a definite Christian policy to take over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them a Christian significance.” Source: Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 145. Copyright 1928 by G. p. Putnam's Sons, New York.] The Sabbath was murdered out of existence through the dark ages when the Roman Catholic Church ruled as Church and state for those terrible 1260 dark years, and Revelation 12:17 [“And the dragon [Satan] was wroth with the woman [Church], and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”] speaks of a remnant of God's original Church that would arise after these dark ages that Satan would hate and make war with because it would start keeping all of the Ten Commandments of God once again. To finish this all off, God showed Isaiah that we will still be keeping the Sabbath in the new Heaven and the New Earth. Here is the Sabbath being kept from the beginning and throughout all eternity.

So do we still keep the Sabbath? The simple version

The Sabbath of the Lord is kept from creation to eternity because it is a love Commandment as are the other nine, and so there should be no doubt that we should be keeping it now. Jesus adds further confirmation to this in the following verses where He explains very concisely that He did not come to abolish His law and that it will last until heaven and earth pass. In other words, it is eternal. So unless you believe the Bible contradicts itself, then other reasons Christians use to deny this special day have to be misunderstood. It really can be explained this simple.

Matthew 5:17-19 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 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 therefore shall break one of these 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.”

If we break one law then we become a transgressor of the law and have broken the whole law.

James 2:10-12 “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if you commit no adultery, yet if you kill, you are become a transgressor of the law. So speak you, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.”

The truth is there is no more sacrifice to cover deliberate sin and to do so is considered as walking all over Jesus and what He did for us and to count the blood of the new covenant an unholy thing.

Hebrews 10:26-29 “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, … He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”

What will Jesus say to Christians who followed Him but were transgressors of the law?

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'”

Loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbour as yourself does not abolish one or all Ten of the Commandments. If you love God with all your heart then you spend that quality time of love with Him on His Holy Day and obey all the first four Commandments. This is a love Commandment. If you love your neighbour as yourself then you obey the last six Commandments. Note anyway that the truth is that Jesus said ALL the law hang on these two Commandments.

Matthew 22:35-40 “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Here is further proof of the above truth and remember this is also after the cross. Loving you neighbour as yourself is a summary and a “saying” that covers the Commandments.

Romans 13:9 “For this, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbour as thyself.”

If God asked you to put aside one day a week on the day that He set apart for you which is also a memorial of creation and so cannot change anyway, what would your reply to God be?

Does it matter that Sunday is mans tradition? Can't we just keep any day as the Sabbath? Does God really mean what He says and say what He means?

Genesis 2:3 “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.”

Mark 7:6-9 “Jesus answered them, "How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you! You are hypocrites, just as he wrote: 'These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!' "You put aside God's command and obey human teachings." And Jesus continued, "You have a clever way of rejecting God's law in order to uphold your own teaching.”

If God sanctified the seventh day, does that make Sunday Holy or all the other days of the week Holy? As already stated, sanctified means to make Holy and to set apart. If all days are sanctified by sanctifying the Seventh day, how can you set it apart from the other days? All days are now the same and there is nothing to set it apart from!

Well, does Holy really matter to God anyway? Can't we just give our Holy God a secular day instituted by the Roman Catholic Church (Papacy) instead of His chosen Holy day? In the following example, Nadab and Abihu where asked to bring Holy fire from the alter but instead brought secular fire.

Leviticus 10:1 “And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.”

So did God really care that they brought secular fire instead of Holy fire that God also referred to as strange fire?

Leviticus 10:2 “And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.”

It seems Holy does matter to God. God asks us to keep the seventh day Holy by spending this time with Him and fellowshipping with others. This we can now see is part of loving God with all your heart which is why it is in God's Moral law of love. Sin is breaking of this law and it does not matter if it is murder or taking God's name in vain or not spending time with God on His Holy day. It is all too easy to be in denial and not to see this as sin but it does not matter what we think but what God says. It is all sin and the Bible makes it perfectly clear that deliberately disobeying any Commandment when we know the truth has only one very “hot” consequence.

The Bible says that war broke out in heaven. “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not” Revelation 12:7-8. Why did war break out in heaven? Because Satan was jealous of God. He said, “I will be like the most high” Isaiah 14:14. He was able to convince one third of the angels to follow him. See Revelation 12:4

The great controversy between Christ and Satan still continues on today except now Satan is working to get Christians to give their allegiance to him instead of God. Satan knows that he and his unholy angels are lost, but he wants to make a mockery of God before the whole universe by destroying us, i.e. God's creation. Satan still wants to be like the most high God. So he is stealing the allegiance of the human race by having his human agent's change God's Ten Commandments and thereby deceiving the nations to follow him instead of our loving Creator God of the whole universe.

The issue is not only about a day; it's about allegiance. The question is: Whom are we going to serve? Do we love God enough to serve Him and keep His commandments fully including the fourth commandment? Or are we going to serve Satan and worship on his counterfeit day as instituted by man? See Mark 7:6-9

So here is the simple version of the Sabbath truth, Jesus said the law won't pass until heaven and earth pass which is never. And why would it? God is love and His law is love and God is eternal and His law is eternal. To abolish the law is to abolish love and if you abolish love you abolish God and the whole reason for our existence. Any other scriptures used are either misunderstood or just excuses for those who do not understand the beauty of this personal Holy time of love and communion with God. Do you love God enough to give Him your full personal time for just one day each week? Everything else you do on secular days should also be to the glory of God but you can't give full devoted time to Him everyday of the week as you would never accomplish anything. If God said it was a sin to eat from a certain tree, would you listen to Him? Would that seem important to you? Less important than spending intimate Holy time with Him? Adam and Eve did not see it as important and so God had to send His only son to die for us to redeem us from the consequences of sin which is death. Make no mistake, the Sabbath is and always will be part of God's Moral law and is therefore sin to deliberately disobey as is the other nine. What makes us deserving of eternal life with God and our Saviour if we do not love Him enough to spend intimate time with Him on the day that he set apart for us? Why so many excuses if our love for God is truly genuine?

Final Sabbath Questions:

Revelation 22:14 “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.”

Watch online Prophecy Seminars:

If you have a reasonably fast internet connection and would like to watch an online Prophecy Seminar to find out the truth of who the little horn of Daniel 7 and the Beast of Revelation 13 is that changed the Sabbath to Sunday, you will find Revelation Reveals the Antichrist very enlightening. You may want to start about 17.5 minutes in to bypass singing items etc. You can also watch Histories Greatest Hoax on the truth about the Sabbath and ideally should be watched first. To watch more from this and other Prophecy Seminars you can find the Prophecy Code menu here. Be prepared to discover many mind blowing, lost Bible truths.

More Information:

Satan has done a wonderful job at deceiving the majority of Christians about the real Sabbath truth and convinced many that the day is a burden and something to come up with every possible excuse to avoid it. This he does to keep as many people from the kingdom as possible. Below is extra reading on all aspects of the Sabbath and all the excuses used in much more detail if you're still not quite sure and would like to know more.

Extra Reading: New Testament basis for Sabbath Keeping:

Some Christians ask is there any specific reference to keeping the Sabbath after the cross and the answer is yes. Here are just a couple. In reference to the future destruction of Jerusalem, Christ states in Matthew 24:20, “And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.” This indicates Christ expected the Sabbath to be kept subsequent His death. The gospel of Luke states in Luke 23:56 that when the body of Christ was being prepared by His followers, they rested on the Sabbath according to the Commandment. But on the weight of Hebrews 4:8-11, the Sabbath does remain a Christian Holy Day. See also Sabbath in the New Covenant.

While a clear directive is given for the Sabbath in Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15, the closest passage to a command for Sabbath-keeping in the New Testament is found in Hebrews 4:9. In this verse is found the word “sabbatismos”. The King James and New King James Version and several other Bibles render the word as “rest” while the Amplified Bible the ASV, NASB, NIV, RSV and NRSV and several other translations somewhat more correctly render that word as “Sabbath rest”. A few Bibles such as the Darby translation transliterate the word as “Sabbatism”. However, its literal translation is “Sabbath observance” and The Scriptures translated by The Institute for Scripture Research render it as such while The Bible in Basic English and Thayer dictionary give the equally literal phrase “Sabbath keeping”. In regard to taking “Sabbatismos” literally, Professor Andrew T. Lincoln, on page 213 in his symposium From Sabbath To The Lord's Day states the following in regards to the Greek word “Sabbatismos” The literal translation then of Hebrews 4:9 is, “Therefore a Sabbath observance has been left behind for the people of God.” The internal evidence of the preceding verses would also indicate that the Sabbath observance mentioned in this verse is indeed the Seventh day Sabbath and not Sunday. In verse 8, the author of Hebrews states, “For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not afterward have spoken of another day.” On first glance in our English translations, that word “another” would give the appearance of a different day. However, in the Greek, there are two words for “another.” “Heteros” means “another of a different kind”, while “allos” means “another of the same kind.” The word used in Hebrews 4:8 is “allos”, indicating a Sabbath day of the same kind as referred to in Hebrews 4:5-8, that is, the seventh-day Sabbath. In verse 7, the author uses the term “certain day.” The Greek word for “certain” is “tis.” It is undoubtedly referencing a specific day and not the general thought of an eternal rest. The force of Hebrews 3:11-4:11 then seems to be saying that because Christians look toward the eternal rest of heaven, the type or shadow of the earthly Sabbath rest still remains or is “left behind”, literally for Christians to observe. This is very significant in light of the greater context of the book of Hebrews which deals with the entire Aaronic priesthood and its methods of worship as found in the Old Covenant being supplanted by the Melchizedek priesthood of Jesus Christ. As the author states in Hebrews 12:27, “And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things which have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.” See what is the Greek Definition of Sabbatismos for more.

The truth on the Sabbath according to God's Word is that He desires Holy time with you on His Holy day, do you love God enough to desire this time with Him?