08/29/2018
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It is TIME for the TRUE FOLLOWERS of GOD to start HONORING GOD by keeping the SABBATH - THE REAL SABBATH instead of the day SATAN has ordained for himself {SUNDAY} through the workings of his FALSE CHURCH in ROME. It has been the goal of SATAN since his days in Heaven to overthrow the THRONE of GOD and have people worship him instead of the CREATOR.
Low and behold he has been working for years to accomplish his goal. Now you have the Roman Catholic Church demanding people worship on SUNDAY only which is totally against the WORD OF GOD. Check out this great article explaining the importance of keeping the SABBATH and when MAN decided it was best to do what he wanted instead of being OBEDIENT to GOD. Once you learn the TRUTH you can NEVER UNLEARN the TRUTH.
As a minister of the TRUTH it is my duty to make sure the ones who call themselves "CHRISTIAN" know the TRUTH about the lies being ground into their minds every time they sit under FALSE TEACHERS or TEACHERS who have been blinded from the TRUTH by RELIGION!!!
Let the TRUTH SET YOU FREE like GOD'S WORD says it will do my friends.
So Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word [continually obeying My teachings and living in accordance with them, then] you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth [regarding salvation], and the truth will set you free [from the penalty of sin].” John 8:31-32
There can be no doubt that Christ, His disciples, and the first-century Christians kept Saturday, the seventh-day Sabbath. Yet, today, most of the Christian professing world keeps Sunday, the first day of the week, calling it the Sabbath. Who made this change, and how did it occur?
No serious student of the Scriptures
can deny that God instituted the Sabbath at creation and designated the seventh
day to be kept holy. “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).
It was later codified as the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8–11).
The Word of God makes it expressly
clear that Sabbath observance is a special sign or “mark” between God
and His people. There is also no uncertainty that Christ, His disciples, and
the first-century Christians kept the seventh-day Sabbath as commanded—the day
we now call “Saturday” (Mark 2:28;
Luke 4:16).
Is There Any Biblical Support for
Sunday Observance?
There is absolutely no New
Testament text stating that God, Jesus, or the apostles changed the Sabbath to
Sunday—not a text, not a word, not even a hint or suggestion. If there
were, those chapters and verses would be loudly heralded by Sabbath opposers.
Had Paul or any other apostle taught a change from Sabbath to Sunday, the first
day of the week, an absolute firestorm of protest would have arisen from
conservative Jewish Christians. The Pharisees and scribes would have insisted
that Paul or any other person even suggesting such a thing be stoned to death
for the sin of Sabbath-breaking. This would have been a much larger issue than
the controversy over circumcision!
The self-righteous Pharisees had
already falsely accused Christ of breaking the Sabbath because He violated the added
man-made rules and traditions they placed upon the Sabbath (Mark 2:24).
The total absence of any such controversy over a change in the day of worship
is one of the best evidences showing the apostles and other New Testament
Christians did not change the day. On the contrary, we have a record of
many Sabbaths that Paul and his traveling companions kept long after the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Read of them in your own Bible in Acts 13:14,27,42–44; 15:21; 16:13; 17:2; and 18:4.
Acts 13:42–44 is especially significant in that Paul and Barnabas, when
speaking at a Jewish synagogue, were invited to speak again the next
Sabbath. This would have been Paul’s golden opportunity to tell the people to
meet with him the next day rather than waiting a whole week for the
Sabbath. But, “on the next Sabbath almost the whole city [Jews and
Gentiles alike] gathered to hear the word of the Lord.”
Yet today, most of the Christian
professing world keeps Sunday, the first day of the week, calling it the
Sabbath. The question arises then, who changed the Sabbath to Sunday,
and how did it occur? The answer may amaze you!
Biblical Testimony
The New Testament plainly shows we
are to continue keeping the commandments (Mathew 5:17–18; 19:17; 28:20)—all ten
of them. Where, then, do men get the “authority” to change the Fourth
Commandment by substituting Sunday for the original Sabbath Christ and the
apostles kept?
The Bible prophesied many centuries
earlier that the time would come when men would think to change times and
laws (Daniel 7:25). Many Bible prophecies are “dual” in nature—that is, they
have a type and antitype, an earlier and a later fulfillment. Though speaking
specifically of the soon-coming antichrist, we can see the forerunner type
documented in history.
The Watering Down of the Sabbath in
the First 300 Years
The Christians during the apostolic
era, from about 35 to 100 A.D., kept Sabbath on the designated seventh day of
the week. For the first 300 years of Christian history, when the Roman emperors
regarded themselves as gods, Christianity became an “illegal religion,” and
God’s people were scattered abroad (Acts 8:1).
Judaism, however, was regarded at that time as “legal,” as long as they obeyed
Roman laws. Thus, during the apostolic era, Christians found it convenient to
let the Roman authorities think of them as Jews, which gained them legitimacy
with the Roman government. However, when the Jews rebelled against Rome, the
Romans put down their rebellion by destroying Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and again in
A.D. 135. Obviously, the Roman government’s suppression of the Jews made it
increasingly uncomfortable for Christians to be thought of as Jewish. At that
time, Sunday was the rest day of the Roman Empire, whose religion was Mithraism,
a form of sun worship. Since Sabbath observance is visible to others, some
Christians in the early second century sought to distance themselves from
Judaism by observing a different day, thus “blending in” to the society around
them.
During the Empire-wide Christian
persecutions under Nero, Maximin, Diocletian, and Galerius, Sabbath-keeping
Christians were hunted down, tortured, and, for sport, often used for
entertainment in the Colisseum.
Constantine Made Sunday a Civil Rest
Day
When Emperor Constantine I—a pagan
sun-worshipper—came to power in A.D. 313, he legalized Christianity and made
the first Sunday-keeping law. His infamous Sunday enforcement law of March 7,
A.D. 321, reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the
magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be
closed.” (Codex Justinianus 3.12.3, trans. Philip Schaff, History of
the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902), 3:380, note 1.)
The Sunday law was officially
confirmed by the Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed,
“Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that
day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians,
shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found
Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ” (Strand, op. cit., citing
Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, 2
[Edinburgh, 1876] 316).
Cardinal Gibbons, in Faith of Our
Fathers, 92nd ed., p. 89, freely admits, “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 [the Catholic Church] never sanctify.”
Again, “The Catholic Church, … by
virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (The
Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23,
1893).
“Protestants do not realize that by
observing Sunday, they accept the authority of the spokesperson of the
Church, the Pope” (Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950).
“Of course the Catholic Church
claims that the change [Saturday Sabbath to Sunday] was her act... And the act
is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things” (H.F. Thomas,
Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons).
“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 Sept 1, 1923).
What a shocking admission!
A Prophecy Come to Pass!
At this point we need to note an
amazing prophecy. Daniel 7:25 foretold, “And he shall speak great words against the most
High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change
times and laws.” Quoting Daniel 7:25,
Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible says:
“He shall speak great words
against the Most High] Literally, Sermones quasi Deus loquetur; “He
shall speak as if he were God.” So Jerome quotes from Symmachus. To none
can this apply so well or so fully as to the popes of Rome. They have assumed infallibility,
which belongs only to God. They profess to forgive sins, which belongs only to
God. They profess to open and shut heaven, which belongs only to God. They
profess to be higher than all the kings of the earth, which belongs only to
God. And they go beyond God in pretending to loose whole nations from
their oath of allegiance to their kings, when such kings do not please them!
And they go against God when they give indulgences for sin. This is the
worst of all blasphemies!
And shall wear out the saints] By wars, crusades, massacres, inquisitions, and
persecutions of all kinds. What in this way have they not done against all
those who have protested against their innovations, and refused to
submit to their idolatrous worship? Witness the exterminating crusades
published against the Waldenses and Albigenses. Witness John
Huss, and Jerome of Prague. Witness the Smithfield fires
in England! Witness God and man against this bloody, persecuting,
ruthless, and impure Church!
And think to change times and laws] Appointing fasts and feasts; canonizing persons whom he
chooses to call saints; granting pardons and indulgences for sins; instituting
new modes of worship utterly unknown to the Christian Church; new articles of
faith; new rules of practice; and reversing, with pleasure, the laws both of
God and man.–Dodd” (Emphasis his; Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible,
Volume IV, p. 594).
Who Changed the Sabbath to Sunday?
Your Bible says, “But in vain
[uselessness] they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men” (Matthew 15:9;
Mark 7:7).
Further, “To the law and to the
testimony: if they speak not according to this word [the Bible], it is
because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20).
“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 Catholic Church alone. The Catholic Church says, 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 reverent obedience to the
command of the Holy Catholic Church” (Thomas Enright, CSSR, President,
Redemptorist College [Roman Catholic], Kansas City, MO, Feb. 18, 1884).
“The Pope has power to change times,
to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ.
The Pope has authority and has often exercised it, to dispense with the command
of Christ” (Decretal, de Tranlatic Episcop).
It is a matter of Biblical and
secular history that God never changed His holy Sabbath or transferred
its solemnity to Sunday. Who did?
Rome, in concert with the Roman
Catholic Church, changed Sabbath to Sunday!
What will you believe? Whom
will you follow? The God of your Bible—or the traditions of men?
The choice, dear reader, is yours.
Original article from The Church of God, here
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