Which Day is God’s Sabbath?
by Tara Chapman
Roman month of February 2008
After God was finished with His six days of Creation work,
notice in Genesis 2:2-3 what God did on the seventh day: 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. God, of
course, doesn’t require rest. What we
see here is the seven-day week, and God gave us an example to
follow.
After Israel became the
Egyptian’s slaves and forgot God’s laws, he had Moses give them the laws
again. In the Ten Commandments, notice
the fourth commandment says, “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 Jehovah (Yahveh/Yahweh) thy God: in it
thou shalt not do any work…for in six days Jehovah made heaven and
earth…and rested the seventh day:
wherefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. In
Matthew 12:8 Jesus said that He is the Lord of the Sabbath day. This is the seventh day of the week. This is repeated in Mark 2:28 and Luke
6:5. Mark 2:27 says that the Sabbath
was made for man. When was it
made? At Creation. Why was it made? For man to rest from his work
and to remember and worship his Creator (Leviticus 23:3). For whom was it made? For everyone. Everyone who joins
himself to God is to keep the Sabbath (Isaiah 56:1-7). All of God’s laws are for everyone. Read Leviticus 16:29; 17:8, 10, 12-13; 20:2; 24:16, 22; Numbers
15:15-16, 29; Deut. 16:14.
The Sabbath commandment was used as a test to see whether ancient Israel
would obey God (Exodus 16:4, 25-26).
Someone transgressed, and God said to Moses, “How long refuse ye to keep
my commandments and my laws?” This was before
the Ten Commandments were given on Mt. Sinai.
God’s laws have been here from the beginning, including his true
Sabbath. God blessed the seed of
Abraham, “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments,
my statues, and my laws.” God’s Sabbath
is from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
God’s days start at evening, not at midnight. God uses his own calendar as well, not the pagan Roman calendar.
Jesus
spent a great deal of time instructing the right way to keep the Sabbath. If he hadn’t meant for us to continue to
keep it, he sure wasted a lot of time talking about it. The Pharisees added many burdensome laws of
their own to the Sabbath, making it a heavy burden, rather than the blessing
God meant for it to be. The Pharisees
accused Jesus of breaking their added laws, which no one is bound to
keep. It’s a sin to add or take
away from God’s laws (Deut. 12:32, Matt. 15:3,9; Mark 7:9,13). The Pharisees were the lawbreakers.
The prophet Daniel prophesied that the apostate-Catholic-Church-run Roman Empire would think to change times and laws and would persecute the true saints (Dan. 7:25). Catholic dogma says, “The pope has power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ."(-Decretal de Translat, Episcop. Cap.) Sunday-keeping is a Catholic law. True Christians were murdered by the wicked Roman Catholic Church. It will happen again during the final revival of the Roman Empire (the beast), and it will again be a church-state operation. The whore of Revelation 17 is the Roman Catholic Church “riding” the government (beast). The Protestants are the Catholic Church’s “children” (Isaiah 47:8, Rev. 18:7), for the Catholic Church is the mother of harlots (Revelation 17:5) God begs them to “Come out of her, my people…”(Rev. 18:4).
Jesus kept the true Sabbath. His apostles kept the true Sabbath (Acts 13:14, 42-44; 15:21;
16:13; 17:2; 18:4; Hebrews 4). The
Sabbath is a shadow of the future 1,000 year reign of Christ and his saints
(Colossians 2:16-17). As we have a
seven-day week, there is a 7,000 year plan of salvation. There are several thousand years for mankind to
see that Satan’s way is disastrous, then there will be one thousand years of rest
from Satan’s deceptions—a Sabbath millennium— because he will be locked
away. The future prophecy of Isaiah
66:22-24 says, “For as
the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,
saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass,
that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all
flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah.”
(Also read verse 25.) Even then,
God’s true people will continue to worship before Him. There will be no Sunday-keepers there.
Sunday worship is Satan’s substitute. God wills all men to repent, once they see
the truth. Sadly, the vast majority
does not love the truth. They do not
want to face the persecution, lose their Saturday-working job, or give up their
worldly ways. They will twist the bible
to suit their own lusts—especially Paul’s letters, just as Peter warned that
people were already doing at that time (II Peter 3:5-17). Reader, what will you do? We urge you to, “Prove all things; hold fast
that which is good” (I Thess. 5:21).
Remember, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end
thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12; 16:25). Paul warned that, “Satan’s ministers would
be transformed as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to
their works” (II Cor. 11:15). There may
be sincere folks who think they are “saved” or have the Spirit of God
and are doing the right things, but if they
are debiberately not doing what the bible says, then they are not doing it the right way.