I believe we should worship together on Sunday.WEEKLY SABBATH, 1 DAY of REST out of 7According to the Bible, it took God 6 days from Sunday through Friday to create everything. Don't under-estimate his speed and power, He would not have used billions of years to slowly evolve it! Our Creator asks that we REST from Saturday dawn to Sunday dawn every week. He even wrote this on a piece of stone with His finger along with 9 other Commandments. The 4th Commandment reads "Remember the weekly Sabbath day, to keep it holy". God wants us to rest with Him on the 7th day Saturday, the Lord's Day, before beginning another work week, originally Sunday through Friday. The Catholic Church is proud that they were able to change the weekly day of worship and REST away from the Bible Saturday dawn to Sunday dawn over to Sunday. Almost all the Protestant denominations followed the Catholics lead, as they too wanted nothing in common with the difficult Jews. This assured them of not being persecuted by the Romans. "In six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, and on the 7th day He RESTED, and was refreshed". We gain great blessings by RESTING with Him from Saturday dawn through Sunday dawn, the true Bible weekly sabbath. Jesus also said that if we don’t rest and celebrate creation with Him by taking Saturday off, or if we change the day, then we are in big trouble with Him. In Exodus 31:16,17 we learn ..."Keep the weekly sabbath, observe the sabbath throughout your generations, for a perpetual covenant. Over a million people left Egypt and followed God - the law-giving Theocratic Leader not in human form yet, across a dried-up Red Sea away from sinful living. They wandered, under the guidance of the Trinity God of BOTH the Old and New Testament, around the Sinai desert for 40 years. God provided for them while they were for 40 years away from cities. He saw to it that a single load of healthy food, manna, which would rot after one full day, fell from the sky for them to eat from Sunday through Thursday. Amazingly, a DOUBLE load of manna fell ONLY on Friday, and lasted without rotting for TWO days, so His people would not have to lift a finger on Saturday (Exodus 16:22,26). What a clever way to keep His chosen people on track, resting on the true sabbath Saturday! Then, on Sunday, and for the other work days of the week, again only one days eating (and rotting) supply of manna fell from the sky. Looking back into history, the Roman masters were upset with the constant Jewish insurrections. A lot of Gentiles and Catholics back in the 3rd & 4th centuries didn't appreciate the rebellious Jews either. These Gentiles therefore considered picking another day for worship, knowing this would help avoid problems with the Romans. For centuries, many Gentiles rested two days in a row, on Saturday according to God, and on Sunday as well. At this point, the Catholic Church boldly switched the official weekly day of REST over to a different day from the Jews, Sunday instead of Saturday, a counterfeit substitute. So the Gentiles had finally made a clean break, going over to Sunday only! This gave them a worshipping distinction different from the Jews, whose Pharisees had led them off track into the anti-Christ legalism of the Talmud. Many don't realize that Sunday was substituted for Saturday, the true weekly sabbath, by the Catholic Church. The Catholics were just as brazen when they eliminated the 2nd Commandment and divided the 10th Commandment into two parts, giving them their present 9th and 10th Commandments. The Lutherans even went along with this. You can imagine what the reaction of Martin Luther would have been to copying the Catholics! The Catholic Church is proud of the fact that it was able to change the weekly day of worship and REST away from the Bible Saturday over to Sunday. The Catholics have the control and worldly power to make such major changes. The week is set by divine command. Yet the Catholic Church, blasphemously claiming infallibility, named a different weekly sabbath from what God set in the 4th Commandment! "They boldly proclaim Sunday the Lords Day for weekly rest and worship, to take the place of the Saturday Sabbath of the old law" (Kansas City Catholic 2-9-1893). The major Protestant denominations meekly followed suit! So most of us now observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, at the Council of Laodicea in AD 336, transferred the holiday from Saturday to Sunday. This change also received the apostolic blessing of Pope Pius X on January 10, 1910 They were now to work on Saturday, resting rather on Sunday. Anyone caught violating this was severely punished, and declared a non-Christian heretic. From there on out, nobody could hold a job or engage in business unless he or she worked on Saturday and rested on Sunday. Why not do what many Gentiles used to do? Continue to REST and worship a 2nd weekend day, a nice extra break. Saturday dawn to Sunday dawn is the day set aside for REST by the 4th Commandment, and has the seal of God on it. After His Thursday afternoon crucifixion, Jesus was taken down from the cross and put in a tomb. His disciples did not consider embalming His body until after they had rested on the one-day-late Friday Passover, and then Saturday according to the 4th commandment (Luke 23:56), while Jesus was dead in the tomb. Jesus emerged Sunday morning on the 1st day of the work week before they could embalm Him. Jesus resurrected and walked out of that tomb guarded by the enemy having completed his 34 ˝ year role as "Sacrificial Lamb". It was the custom of Jesus to attend a synagogue on the sabbath Saturday. The disciples continued this Saturday custom AFTER the death of Jesus, as one can read in many places in Acts, and other New Testament Chapters. There is nowhere in the Bible where Jesus says to change the 4th Commandment day of REST and relaxation from the 7th day Saturday to the first work day Sunday. There is also nowhere that the Bible says to change from Saturday dawn to Sunday dawn over to Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Our modern midnight-to-midnight basis came from the Romans, who got the idea from Babylon. Bible days start at dawn! This goes against prevailing popular religious opinion. Study and find for yourself that all yearly sabbaths also begin at dawn with two exceptions: So a Bible day is from dawn to the next dawn. The Commandments were delivered by God long before Moses time, so it should not be Mosaic law nailed to the cross. The weekly Saturday REST day was set up at the time of creation. Recall ’Abraham was obedient to the Commandments’. Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-19 "Think not that I have come to destroy the law, but instead to fulfil it. Until heaven and earth pass away, not one I dot or T crossing shall pass from the law. Whoever breaks one of these least commandments, or teaches men and women to do so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven". Jesus makes it clear in James 2:10-12 "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he or she is guilty of all and shall be judged by the law of liberty". It is healthy for us to rest two days each week, the 4th Commandment Saturday AND the first work day, Sunday. The early Christian Church did this for centuries before following the Catholic lead, slipping over to just Sunday! Exodus 20:11 "In 6 days Jesus made heaven and earth,the sea, and all that in them is. He rested the 7th day, and blessed it." God's seal is stamped - everything created in 6 days Sunday to Friday, and the 7th day Saturday the day of REST. In Exodus 31:13-17 we learn "My sabbaths ye shall keep, for it is holy unto you, a sign between Me and you ... for a perpetual covenant forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed". Difficult for those who say the sabbaths went out with the resurrection to get past these Scriptures. In Genesis 2 we learn in verses 3 and 4 "God blessed the 7th day, and sanctified it because He had rested from all His work which God created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and heavens". Exodus 20, parts of verses 10 and 11, describe the Fourth Commandment: "the 7th day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God who rested the 7th day, and the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it". In Isaiah 58:13,14 we learn "If thou turn away from doing thy pleasure on My Holy day and call the sabbath a delight, a holy day to honor Me, not doing thy own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, then I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth". In Leviticus 23:3 we learn "the 7th day is the sabbath of rest; it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings". This certainly sounds like the Lord's Day doesn't it? In Matthew 12:8 we learn that the Pharisees went after Jesus and His disciples for working on Saturday according to the Talmud. Since In Acts 13:42,44 we learn that it wasn't just the Jews keeping the Saturday sabbath "When the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought Paul that these words preached to the Jews might be preached to them the next sabbath, when almost the whole city came together to hear Paul preach the word of God". Note Paul didn't preach the next day Sunday, he came back a week later. The phrase "people of God" is not limited by Jesus to just Jews, but includes every man, woman and child desirous of experiencing the spiritual blessings and delight of entering by faith into God's rest. ALL of God's faithful, not just the Jews, are supposed to REST on the Saturday sabbath. In Matthew 24:20 we learn that Jesus said to "pray that your flight be not in the winter neither on the sabbath day". Jesus spoke in terms of an unchanged sabbath, looking ahead to when He would resurrect and depart. In Hebrews 4:4,8-10 we learn "God did rest the seventh day from all His works". Jesus had given them rest. If not, wouldn't He afterward have spoken of another day? "There remaineth therefore a keeping of the sabbath for the people of God, for he or she that enters into this rest has ceased from any works,as God ceased from His work". |