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Christianity, Current events, faith

Christian Sabbath Worship, Demonic Doctrine?

A video came across my feed that disturbed me a bit so I thought I would write this article to make some clarifications on what was said in the video. Pastor Greg Locke is a pastor in Tennessee that I do have quite a bit of respect for. That respect comes from listening to many many of his messages on social issues in the light of Holy Scripture.

He carries the message of the need for the saving power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He pulls no punches in calling out sin. This has gotten him banned from social media and even hate mail and even curses from those proclaiming to be witches.

His zeal is needed in more pulpits. However, the latest video brought up an idea that needs commented on. In one of his latest messages, he called Sabbath observance a demonic doctrine. Now, he did make the truthful point that we are not under the law but saved by grace. That is true. It is only through the grace of Jesus the Christ and His mercy that gives us the hope of salvation. But that does not make the the Commandments of God void. In this article, I will give the few verses that pastors like Pastor Locke use. I will also use Holy Scripture to show that the commandments (all 10) are still relevant and give a short history on the Sabbath/Sunday issue.

And I’ll mention this in starting. There are more than just the Seventh Day Adventists that worship on God’s Holy Sabbath, although this is the best known. Sabbath Christian worship has been done through the history of the church. SDA came about from the Millerite movement in the 1800s. The Seventh Day Baptists trace their direct roots from the 1600s. The Spanish Inquisition was started because the queen (a Roman Catholic) despised ‘Judaizers’ (Sabbath keeping Christians).

There will be both Sabbath and Sunday worshipers in Heaven. There will be members from all denominations in Heaven. Because it is not about the denomination, it is about the personal relationship with Jesus that makes the difference.

Sunday worship

Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1-2, Mark 16:9, Luke 24:1, and John 20:1 all speak of the day of Jesus’s resurrection. Yet in these verses, there is no mention of making that day the new Sabbath.  John 20:19 speaks of the disciples being in the upper room on the day of resurrection. They were not there in worship, but fear for lives and and disbelief in that Jesus would be raised from the dead. Mark 16:14, showing the same see, has Jesus chastising the disciples for their unbelief. Nowhere in these verses does Sunday sacred worship come into being.

  Mark 2:23-28 is where Jesus was being rebuked by the Pharisees for doing good on the Sabbath. In this verse we see Jesus saying that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. This harkens back to Genesis 2:2-3 and Exodus 20:8-11. In Genesis, after creation, God set the 7th day Sabbath as a day of rest making is hallowed (Holy). So the Sabbath was set before even man walked upon the earth. In Exodus, Jesus, being God, personally wrote in stone about the sacredness of the Sabbath. In the 4th commandment (3rd if your Catholic), two points were made. First, the 7th day Sabbath was set aside by God as a day of holy rest. Second, that it was meant for all men.  “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 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. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” 

There are various New Testament Scriptures that tell of meeting on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7,11,13 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. Yes, they did meet and expound upon the teachings of Christ. But, they also met on multiple days in the week as well (Acts 5:42). Nowhere in the entire New Testament did Jesus or His Apostles determine that that Sunday was to replace the Sabbath set by God. In fact, Jesus Himself, and the Apostles worshiped on the Sabbath. Jesus even went as far to continue to solidify the Sabbath and the commandments.

The need for the commandments.

Pastor Locke and most Christian preachers/priests speak on the grace of God through Jesus negating the laws of God. To be fair, they are partly right. The verse they use is a single verse spoken by Christ. Matthew 5:17 says that Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish them. To correct part of the error of modern thought let us go to Deuteronomy. There were the laws and the Commandments, two separate things. We know that the 10 Commandments of God were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. However, the law was placed on the outside of the ark “Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there as a witness against you” Deuteronomy 31:26. These were the ceremonial and civil laws (food prep, rules of cleanliness, etc. These are the laws that Jesus fulfilled. The commandments stayed in place. These are the laws that Jesus said that the Pharisees forgot the intentions of. All of these laws, pointed to Jesus’s sacrifice and death. That is why he linked them to the prophecies about Himself.

Jesus mentions the need to follow the Commandments of God. Matthew 5:18 says that they will not pass away until all be fulfilled. That was referencing the second coming not the cross, so the need of the commandments continue. In John 14:15, 21,23 specifically has Jesus saying to keep His commandments. Since He wrote them on Sinai, it is not hard to understand what He meant.

In Jesus’s message to John at Patmos (Revelation/Apocalypse), Jesus said this, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. Revelation 14:12” There are two parts in this statement. 1) Have the faith of Jesus (Salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ). 2) Keep the Commandments of God (the 10 given on Sinai). It is self explanatory. Both are needed.

History of Sunday worship

Through the Holy Scriptures, it can be seen that Jesus and His Apostles kept the 7th day Sabbath as commanded by God in Exodus and set by God in Genesis. So we must ask where the change came from.

It started as a civil law by Constantine in AD 321. During a battle, Constantine said he saw a the Cross of Jesus in the sky and that was the aid that helped him win that battle. So he made Christianity the main religion in his territory. Being that the area was still pagan, and worshiped the sun god on the first day of the week (SUNday), he stated that Christians would observe this day to better convert (so to speak) the pagan masses. ‘March 7, 321, however, Roman Emperor Constantine I issued a civil decree making Sunday a day of rest from labor, stating:

All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable day of the sun. Country people, however, may freely attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows or the vines in trenches. So that the advantage given by heavenly providence may not for the occasion of a short time perish.’

The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church states here: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c1a3.htm about Sunday worship.

And here are Papal quotes that they think gives them ability to change doctrine and God’s rules.

 The New York Catholic Catechism, under: Pope, says, “The Pope takes the place of Jesus Christ on earth…by divine right the pope has supreme and full power in faith and morals over each and every pastor and his flock. He is the true Vicar of Christ, the head of the entire church, the father and teacher of all Christians He is the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the author of and the judge of councils; the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of all, being judged by one, God himself on earth.”

In his encyclical, “The Reunion of Christendom” (1885), Pope Leo XIII stated that the pope holds “upon this earth the place of God Almighty.”

The Council of Trent declared: “Sitting in that chair in which Peter, the Prince of the      Apostles, sat to the close of life, the Catholic Church recognizes in his person the most exalted degree of dignity, and the full jurisdiction not based on constitutions, but emanating from no less authority than from God Himself. As the Successor of St. Peter and the true and legitimate Vicar of Jesus Christ, he therefore, presides over the Universal Church, the Father and Governor of all the faithful, of Bishops, also and of all other prelates, be their station, rant, or power, what they may be.”

The Catholic book, “My Catholic Faith” which is based on the Baltimore Catechism, on page 251, says, “The Pope can make and unmake laws for the entire Church; his authority is supreme and unquestioned. Every bishop, every priest, every member of the Church is subject to him.

One last verse to look at as I close. In the prophecies of Daniel on the last days we read this. “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: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” (Daniel 7:25) 

There is only one Commandment that is both a time and a law. The fourth Commandment (third for Catholics) is a law, Sabbath is a time. Worship on Sunday or the Sabbath is up to the person. But to call Sabbath day worship by Christians a Demonic Doctrine borders on heresy and could be seen as blasphemy.

Image borrowed from ‘Broken Adventist Ministry’

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Christianity, faith

Commandment 4: The Sabbath

Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it. Six days shall you work and accomplish all your work; but the seventh day is Sabbath to Hashem, your God; you shall not do any work-you, your son, your daughter, your slave, your maidservant, your animal, and your convert within your gates- for in six days Hashem made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, Hashem blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it. (Exodus 20:8-11 from the Tanach, Stone Edition).

This commandment is the only one of the ten, given on Sinai and expounded on by Jesus, that the majority of the Christian world does not follow. This article will have three sections. The first will be examples from the Old Testament (Tanach) that show where it originated and why it is important.

The second section will be from the New Testament and show how important the commandments are. It will use the Gospels, Letters, and Revelation to show the importance of keeping all the commandments by those professing faith in Christ.

The third will be historical looks on the changing from Sabbath worship to Sunday worship. It will use writings of main denominations of Christianity. And it will look at how the Roman Catholic church looks at the ability and reason for the change and their views on the biblical Sabbath.

This debate of Sabbath v Sunday will probably be debated through Christendom until the second coming of Christ. But this article will show the biblical (not man’s interpretation) of God’s Holy determination of the day of worship.

Old Testament Views

The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done (Genesis 2:1-3). The first book of Moses shows us why the day is sacred, and the day of holy rest. It was the only day sanctified by God himself. Six days God worked creating everything. He took the seventh day and sanctified it as a rest day. When God brought the Israelites from Egypt to Mt. Sinai, he made it clear in his commandments that because he sanctified it at creation, they were to keep it sanctified in their faith. It was retold to them in Deuteronomy 5:12-14 & Leviticus 23:3.

We learn in Numbers that the Sabbath rest also was extended to gentiles and had penalties for breaking its observance. But the person, be he citizen or stranger, who acts defiantly reviles the LORD; that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has spurned the word of the LORD and violated His commandment, that person shall be cut off—he bears his guilt. Once, when the Israelites were in the wilderness, they came upon a man gathering wood on the sabbath day. Those who found him as he was gathering wood brought him before Moses, Aaron, and the whole community. He was placed in custody, for it had not been specified what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death: the whole community shall pelt him with stones outside the camp (Numbers 15:32-36).

New Testament Views

The Gospels tell us of the important parts of Christ’s life and ministry. Such things as his birth, miracles, baptism, death, and most important of all, his resurrection. Being brought up in the Jewish faith, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath.He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom (Luke 4:16). At a few points, the Pharisees asked why he would profane the Sabbath by doing healings and getting food to eat from the fields. He gave them a couple different answers like reminding them of God’s compassion (healings) and of David eating food meant for the priests (gathering food).

But he also expounded on the Sabbath as a hallowed day. Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28).There are theologians who will say that this proves that Jesus, while reverencing the day hallowed by God, that because he is the Lord of the Sabbath, he changed its meaning and importance. Two issues arise from this perspective. The first being, he never said it was open to interpretation or that it didn’t need to still be followed. The second issue comes from the understand that he was God in the flesh “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.The same was in the beginning with God.All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth (John 1:1-4,14)” and that God never changes “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Matthew 13:8)”.So saying Jesus was indicating that the validity of the sanctity of the Sabbath was no longer important, is saying that Matthew 13:8 is a lie. Since the scriptures tell us “AllScripture isGod-breathedandis usefulforinstruction,forconviction,forcorrection,and fortraininginrighteousness,so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17), that would be the same as calling God himself a liar.

We find in Acts and in various letters by the apostles that they followed the Sabbath as the holy day.And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures (Acts 17:2). And Paul said Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). We also see that those gentiles seeking to hear of Jesus observed the Sabbath because it is when Paul and other disciples preached to them. So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them,persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God (Acts 13:42-44).

In many places of the New Testament, Jesus tells his followers what it takes to be saved and earn eternal life.If yekeepmy commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love (John 15:1). If ye love me, keep my commandments. He that hath my commandments, andkeepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him (John 14:15, 21).

In Revelation we are told through John’s writing are those that will see eternal life with God. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, whichkeepthe commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (Revelation 12:17). Here is the patience of the saints: here are they thatkeepthe commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:12).These few verses, as well as others, should make it important to understand that the commandments and faith in Christ are needed to make it to a heavenly reward of eternal life.

History of Change

The bible prophesied the change of times and laws. 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: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time (Daniel 7:25). There is only one commandment that is also a time. The fourth commandment (law) is the command for Sabbath (time) holiness. Let look to see where that change came from.

The Catholic Catechism states in Part 3 Section 2 Chapter 1 Article 3 Subsection 2 Line 2174 “Jesus rose from the dead “on the first day of the week.” Because it is the “first day,” the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the “eighth day” following the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica) Sunday:We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead”. What is interesting is that they use the pagan vernacular “the day of the sun”. They also say they celebrate for two reasons. Christ rising from the dead on the first day AND God’s “separation of light and dark” on the first day of creation.

Since the Bible writers didn’t say that God the father or God the Son (Jesus) changed the rules of the fourth commandment, it has to be understood that the Catholic Church got that ability from somewhere. The church tells us where that power came from. “ “All power is given Me in heaven and on earth; as the Father sent Me so I also send you,” said our Divine Lord in giving His tremendous commission to His Apostles. “He that heareth you heareth Me.” We have in the authoritative voice of the Church the voice of Christ Himself.The Church is above the Bible; and this transference of Sabbath observance from Saturday to Sunday is proof positive of that fact.Deny the authority of the Church and you have no adequate or reasonable explanation or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third – Protestant Fourth – Commandment of God. As the Rev. Mr. Smith rightly points out: “The Jewish Sabbath is not Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Christians are all wrong in speaking of the Sabbath as Sunday.” The Christians who so speak are “Bible Christians,” those who make the Bible the sole rule of Faith; and the Bible is silent on Sunday observance, it speaks only of Sabbath observance. The Lord’s Day – Dies Dominica – is the term used always in the Missal and the Breviary. It occurs in the Bible once (Apoc. 1.10;) in Acts xx. 7 and 1 Cor. xvi., 2 there is a reference to “the first day of the week;” but in none of these is there the remotest intimation that henceforth the first day is to take the place of the seventh. That is the crux of the whole question, what authority does the Bible give for the change? And that difficulty Mr. Smith and his critics, though pious and effusive and vaguely eloquent about many things, have each and all sedulously evaded.

    If affects very materially and very intimately the question of the proper observance of the Lord’s Day.

    In the first centuries the obligation of rest from work remained somewhat indefinite. The Council of Laodicea, held at the end of the fourth century, was content to prescribe that on the Lord’s Day the faithful were to abstain from work as far as possible. At the beginning of the sixth century St. Cesarius and others showed an inclination – very familiar to us – to apply the law of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday. But the Council of Orleans in 538 reprobated this tendency as Jewish and non-Christian.

    Thus by the same Divine authority, in virtue of which she did away with the Jewish Sabbath and substituted therefor the Christian Sunday, the Catholic Church legislated as to how the Lord’s Day should be observed.

    Due to the exaggerated importance given the Bible after the Reformation and to the influence of Puritanism, the Lord’s Day in England and still more in Scotland began to take on all the rigorism of the Jewish Sabbath. That heritage, though somewhat softened, we still have with us. A game of ball where participants and spectators enjoy health-giving rest and recreation in the open air is “desecration of the Sabbath.” The swimming pool controversy is another good example.

   We would not be misunderstood. With much of the activity of the Sabbatarians we are in sympathy. Their insistence on a day of rest being given all workers is admirable. But their muddle-headed confusion of the Lord’s Day with the Jewish Sabbath – against which the Rev. Mr. Smith so vigorously protests – finds no sympathy amongst the Catholics who receive the Lord’s Day itself as well as its mode of observance from the Church and not from the Bible”(Saturday, September 1st, 1923 edition of The Catholic Record of London, Ontario, Canada, Volume XLV, #2342 and appeared on page 4http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/c-record.htm).

The Bible does not say that God or Christ (or the Apostles through leading of the Holy Spirit) changed the day of worship or said that the commandment was void. The Catholic Church admits that they changed it and call those that worship on the day set aside by God are ‘B ible Christians’. So do you follow traditions set by man or are you a “Bible Christian”?

Jesus called out the Pharisees of his day. But he is also talking to the Pharisees of our day.

He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition (Mark 7:6-9)

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