Good evening, friends. Welcome again to "The Last Day of Prophecy." I'd like to welcome those of you here in Charlotte, North Carolina. So good to see you again this evening. Thank you for coming out and being a part of this very special interactive Bible study. To our friends who are joining us across the country and around the world, a very warm welcome to you as well. Tonight we have a very important subject that you don't want to miss called "History's Greatest Hoax." So we'll be getting to that subject here in just a few moments.
But before we do, just some announcements to bring you up to speed. We have three presentations left, including the one this evening. Now, for our friends who are joining us live, our next program is going to be tomorrow at 11 a.m. Eastern time. I believe there'll also be some rebroadcasts in some of the other time zones so join us then tomorrow morning for "Satan's Mark or God's Seal?" Very important presentation. And for materials, those of you here, you probably received the materials when you came in that goes along with the sermon. And for our friends watching, just go to "The Last Day of Prophecy" website, the lastdayofprophecy.com, and you can download the sermon information there. It's sort of a summary of the points that are presented. And then study along with us.
Well, we have a theme song that we like to sing at the beginning of each of our presentations, and I'd like to invite you to stand as we sing this song, "Jesus Will Come on Time," and the words will be printed on the screen.
Okay, as you stand your bodies, let your voices be lifted on high as we embrace our theme song, "He's Coming on Time," right? Sing it!
♪ ♪ Jesus will come on time
♪ ♪ Yes, He will come on time!
♪ ♪ Doubters may talk and scoffers mock
♪ ♪ babbling without rhyme or reason
♪ ♪ His promises are true and He will remember you
Why?
♪ ♪ Now, the clock of prophecy will chime
♪ ♪ Up Jacob's ladder we will climb
♪ ♪ In brilliant glory so sublime
♪ ♪ Our God will come on time
♪ ♪ Yes, Jesus will come on time!
Yes, He will. Sing now.
♪ ♪ Jesus will come on time
♪ ♪ Yes, He will come on time!
♪ ♪ He's never wrong
♪ ♪ It won't be long
♪ ♪ Til we ascend in joy and glory
♪ ♪ Be sober, watch, and pray
Why?
♪ ♪ He may be on His way
♪ ♪ Now, the clock of prophecy will chime
♪ ♪ Up Jacob's ladder we will climb
♪ ♪ In brilliant glory so sublime
♪ ♪ Our God will come on time
♪ ♪ Yes, Jesus will come on time!
Say it again, folks.
♪ ♪ Jesus will come on time
Finally.
♪♪ Jesus will come on time!
Thank you very much.
Amen, amen. I'd like to invite you just to bow your heads as we begin with a word of prayer. Dear Father, once again we are so grateful to be able to be here and spend time studying Your Word on these very important end-time subjects, and we ask, once again, for the Holy Spirit to come and guide our hearts and our minds. Father, our prayer is that we would understand Your will and then give us the courage and the strength to follow it. For we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. I'd like to invite Pastor Doug Batchelor to come join me here on the stage. We've asked from time to time, if you're watching somewhere outside of Charlotte or maybe even overseas, we like to hear from you, and we've had some folks send us some pictures of some of the sites. Now, we can't put all of the pictures up, Pastor Doug, but we did get some, and we thought we'd maybe go through a few of them this evening.
That's right. Well, we have one here from North Kingstown, Rhode Island. We want to say, "Greetings." Matter of fact, I'll tell you what. These folks are sending in their pictures, and it's not too late to send some for the remaining two programs. Why don't you wave to them? We'll flip a camera around. You can all wave to them. Right, here they are. North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Who do we have next? Salem, Oregon. Got a nice group there. I think I've been to that church. Hayward, California. We've got study groups all around the world that are joining us for this program. I told you we have people who are in India and England and China.
(Jean Ross) Send us your picture of your group, wherever you might be meeting, and we'll try and get it up. We've got two more programs left. That's right. All right. Thank you, Pastor.
Thank you so much, Pastor Ross. Well, friends, welcome again to "The Last Day of Prophecy." This is sort of a Bible study spectacular, talking about the rest of the story. Now, you've all figured out what the rest of the story is? It's talking about the rest in Jesus and the rest of the Sabbath and how that whole theme plays out in Bible prophecy. And tonight's study is going to be one-- I'm just praying as I share that I can just do it in the right spirit, because a lot of people in the world have been fooled, and nobody wants to be fooled. I don't know about you but, I mean, sometimes we all enjoy a little practical joke. But not when eternal things are at stake. And our lesson tonight, dealing with "History's Holy Hoax" really is no joke.
Any of you ever encountered a con artist before? There have been some very creative con artists through history. One of them who wasn't quite as dangerous is Fred Demara. They actually made a movie about him with Tony Curtis, called "The Great Pretender." Fred had a photographic memory, very high IQ, ranked way above genius. He had a literal photographic memory, and he could read manuals on any topic and pretend to be that person with some expertise. He never went by Fred Demara. He went by just dozens of names. He was Martin Goddard, a high school teacher, even though he'd never trained for that. He talked his way into being Dr. Robert French, a college Dean. He talked his way into being Dr. Cecil B. Hamann, a law student. Brother John, a Benedictine monk, lived in a-- He was a hospital chaplain, an assistant prison warden, a Hollywood actor, and a surgeon aboard a Canadian Navy destroyer with no medical training and he was performing surgeries. Successfully.
And then you've got Arthur Ferguson. He was a smooth operator. A Scottish fella, dressed impeccably. Had perfect diction, looked very sophisticated and he succeeded in one year he sold Nelson's pillar in Trafalgar Square to some American tourists. He began to think Americans are gullible because he also sold Big Ben for $5,000, he accepted $10,000 down payment for Buckingham Palace. When he came to the USA, which he figured would be a lot easier, he did sell the White House to a cattle rancher, gave him a 99-year lease for $100 thousand. He was arrested when he tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to an Australian. True story. Then you got Victor Lustig, Eastern European, very bright. Spoke like five or six languages. He sold the Eiffel Tower two different times without being caught. Came to America, told everybody that he was a Count. And he had an accent, he was very dignified, and swindled so many people. Eventually, he decided rather than conning people, it'd be easier to just print his own money, and he was finally arrested for one of the most massive counterfeiting operations. And he died in prison. And that's Victor Lustig.
The big swindler is the devil. The devil is a counterfeiter, and he has a counterfeit for every truth of God. The devil has a counterfeit salvation, he's got a counterfeit Holy Spirit. He's got a counterfeit baptism, counterfeit speaking in tongues, counterfeit love. And it shouldn't surprise us that he's got a counterfeit day of rest. Now, if you look in the Bible, this is a prophecy seminar and this week--don't miss the next two meetings, we're going to be very deep in Daniel and Revelation. But you read Revelation chapter 1, verse 10. John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet."
What is this Lord's Day? Someone said, "Well, it's because the vision of revelation he saw the Lord's Coming and so he called it the Lord's Day." Others have said, "Well, that was Sunday. He had that vision on Sunday. That's the Lord's Day." Others have said, "Well, he was working in the mines. "He was a prisoner on Patmos but he refused to work on Sabbath and God gave him the vision of revelation on the Sabbath Day." So what does the Bible say?
And that's our first question is the Lord's Day. What day, biblically, is the Lord's Day? How 'bout we let the Bible describe itself and give our answers, amen? So let's look and find out. You look in Luke chapter 6, verse 5, and Jesus said-- and we've read this several times already. He said, "The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." So what is the Lord's Day? Jesus said, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Look again in Isaiah 58. Did you catch something we read the other night? "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on the Jewish holy day." It's not what he says. He says, "On My holy day," so what is the Lord's Day? God tells us. And right there in the command, in Exodus 20, "Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the Sabbath," of a denomination? Or of the Lord?
There is nothing in the Bible that tells us any other day than the Sabbath Day is a day that the Lord would designate as His day. He rested, He blessed it, He set it aside. He made a whole day, not where He created anything but a day. A day of relationship, love, and worship. Next question. "If the Sabbath is the Lord's Day, why do so many people observe Sunday?" And I want to emphasize again in this seminar I believe there's going to be millions, if not billions, of people in Heaven that maybe went to church and worshiped God on what was technically not the right days. Everyone clear? You all hear me? I want to make that very clear. But I think that people want to know what the Bible really teaches. There are going to be people in heaven that had too many wives. Do you agree? Hopefully, not anybody here. I'm talking about too many at one time. But they lived back in the day where God "winked at their ignorance." You read in Acts 17, verse 30, "At the times of this ignorance God winked at." God didn't approve of divorce. Jesus said, "Because of the hardness of your hearts." So there's a lot of things. God is merciful, and He winks at our ignorance, but that doesn't mean we give up trying to find out what the truth is, amen?
So do you want to know the truth about what the Bible says about something as important as this neglected commandment, and what might be history's holy hoax, a counterfeit? If the Sabbath is the Lord's Day, why do so many people observe the first day, or Sunday? "He said to them, 'All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.'" There's a lot of traditions that have substituted for biblical truth. And again, Jesus said in Luke 6:46, "Why do you say, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not the things that I say?" If you're a Christian, then He wants you to really follow him, amen? Difference between the wise man and the fool. Wise man builds on the rock, foolish man builds on the sand. What does it mean to build on the rock? "The wise man hears these words of mine and does them. "The foolish man hears these words of mine, doesn't do them." The storm is coming to everybody. Storm comes to the fool, storm comes to the wise man. A storm is coming to this world, friends. We want to build on the rock and your house will stand, amen?
Furthermore, Ezekiel 22. They had this problem with neglecting the Sabbath, even in the Old Testament. Ezekiel said, "Her priests have violated my laws and have profaned my holy things." Profaning something means you take something sacred and you treat it as common. And it goes on to say, "They put no difference "between the holy and the profane. "They have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them." This is God's people He was talking to. Could history repeat itself? The devil hasn't changed. He just--he may change the outer garments, but the plan-- He tries to get people to break God's law, because sin is the transgression of God's law, and he wants to separate us from the Lord. It goes on to say, "Therefore I poured out My indignation on them."
Now, before I go any farther, I want to explain to you the word Sabbath is mentioned 60 times in the New Testament. I think no one questions the, I don’t know, hundreds of times it may be mentioned in the Old Testament. But at 60 times in the New Testament, never is it said that it is done away with or it has been changed. There were a number of disputes about how to keep it but never whether or not you should keep it. The first day of the week that we commonly call Sunday, you realize the days of the week in the Bible, they don't call them Wednesday and Monday. We get our calendar names and our weekly names we get from the Romans. Do you know why we got a month called July? Because Julius Caesar wanted a month. When Augustus Caesar saw that Julius Caesar had a month, he wanted a month. That's why you've got August. And the reason February is short is because Julius-- Augustus Caesar did not want a month shorter than Julius Caesar, so he took days off February and put them on the end of his month. November is supposed to be the 9th month, right? Nueve. But what is it? What about September? Septimo. That should be the 7th month. But what is it? It's the 9th month. November's the 11th month. The Romans messed with the calendar. They worshiped the sun on the first day of the week; moon day, Monday; Thor's day, Thursday; Odin's day, Wednesday. And so none of these names are in the Bible. First day of the week was called first day. Second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, preparation day, Sabbath day. So you're never going to find the word Wednesday in the Bible. If you do, you have a strange Bible.
So let's find out if there's any place in the Bible where God has changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If we look at every text that speaks of the first day of the week in the Bible, we should find out if it's there. Does that sound fair? At least in the New Testament. So that's what we're going to do. If you look at the first five out of eight-- How many did I say? There's a total of eight. Five out of eight all are giving the record of the Resurrection. They say basically the same thing, but we're going to look at every one of them and ask this question. "Do any of the first five Resurrection texts say that Sunday is a new holy day?" Let's look at them. Matthew 28:1, "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week." Well, one thing this verse tells us is the Sabbath was still the Sabbath. It actually tells us the Sabbath was just before the first day. "Now when Jesus was risen early," and this is Mark 16:9, "on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene."
Now, by the way, did that past verse, did it say anything about it being a new Sabbath day? "The first day of the week comes Mary Magdalene early while it was yet still dark." That's John 20, verse 1. And it goes on to say in Mark 16, this is another verse, "Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, "Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices, that they might come anoint Him." Why were they coming to anoint Him Sunday morning? Because the sun was going down Friday afternoon when He died. They were afraid they would not complete a rather intensive job, and they wanted to do it before the Sabbath. You could biblically still anoint a person within 3 days of their death before they began to decompose. And they said, "Let's wait. "We'll come back early Sunday and do it then because Jesus wouldn't want us doing this on Sabbath." Sabbath was that important to the disciples.
Now, it states, of course, they came, the tomb was empty. Praise the Lord. We're right now on the verge of Easter, right? People thinking about the Resurrection. And that is a wonderful truth. I've got beautiful sermons I love to hear and preach on the subject of the Resurrection. But here's a question. Did that make it a new Sabbath day? How important was it that Jesus died for us on Friday? Very important. And when He had the Lord's Supper, the Communion service, on Thursday, do we all agree that that was important? He establishes a new covenant. Did it make it a new Sabbath? Did it do away with the old Sabbath because something important in the gospel happened on a certain day of the week? And so trying--do you use that as an argument? The Bible doesn't use it. I don't think is fair. And you can go to Luke 24, verse 1. And this is the fifth of the first eight verses where the first day is mentioned. "Now, upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher." That's a tomb. It's a stating of historical fact. Now, we just went through them.
All those verses that mention the first day are simply giving the record that the Sabbath was over, they came back. Why does it mention the first day? Because now they can resume their work. Jesus even kept the Sabbath in His death. He went to sleep Friday afternoon. He woke up Sunday morning to continue His work as our high priest, mediator, intercessor, before the Father, amen? Now, we're going to jump to the sixth text, and it talks about what I think is a regular meeting. You'll find this in John 20, verse 19. Then it says, "That same day," the day of the Resurrection, "at evening." Well, now, wait a second. What day did Jesus rise? First day of the week. What day of the week is that? It's what we call Sunday. The first day of the week is Sunday.
But when do the days begin and end biblically? At sundown. And so when He meets with them in the evening, that's either Sunday night or early Monday, biblically. Because the new date came once the sun went down. So trying to build a doctrine by saying He met Sunday/Monday and that became the new Sabbath, that's not a very strong argument. Why did they gather? It says, "Being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, the disciples were assembled," to celebrate and inaugurate the new holy day of the Christian era. No, they got together for fear of the Jews. They are trembling. They've just killed Jesus. They tried to arrest Mark who was following Christ and he fled naked. And now the body has disappeared in spite of the fact Roman soldiers were there guarding it. Put there by Pilate. They're going to be blamed. The religious leaders had paid the guard to say the disciples stole the body. They're terrified. And so Jesus--they're not gathered to celebrate a new Sabbath. It's telling you that they were trembling and then Jesus shows up, made them jump 3 feet off the ground. All right, so that's passage number six.
(Karen Batchelor) Finish the text.
Oh, Karen told me to finish reading it. "The disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, "Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said, 'Peace be to you.'" Don't be afraid, right? This is the reason it's telling the story.
Question number five, "Does the seventh passage say that Sunday's holy?" Let's take a look at it. Now, I want to read this one with you, and you read in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 and you can look in verses-- Actually, we'll be looking in verses 1 and 2, or at least go to verse-- Yes, 1 and 2. "Now, concerning the collection for the saints, "as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, "so you must also do. "On the first day of the week let each one of you "lay something aside, storing up, that he may-- "as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come."
Now, why is Paul telling them on the first that-- some will argue that's because this was the new Christian Sabbath, and they're taking an offering. Anything says you can only give an offering on Sabbath? Paul is actually telling them, when he says, "Lay by you" and "in store," what does it mean, "lay by you"? Does that mean at church or at home? He's coming through, making haste, on his way to Jerusalem to bring a special offering to the Jews because there's a famine there and they're Christian Jews and he's saying, "Set something aside at home. "After you get your accounts in order, "you've done your giving on Sabbath, "at home on the first of the week, "when you get your books in order, "put something else aside, not for your local church needs, "but that I can take an emergency relief offering to the people struggling from the famine in Jerusalem." It had nothing to do with there was a church meeting and they took an offering or that this is a new Sabbath day. This is not the substitute for the Ten Commandments.
Question number six, "Does the eighth and final New Testament text command us to observe Sunday as a holy day?" This is the last one. Go to Acts chapter 20, verse 7, and it says, "Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread--" And people go: Ah! There you have it. They came together on the first of the week to break bread, and that's because they were having a Communion service and this is the new Sabbath and this indicates this is when they would normally meet. I'm going to read this to you right from the Bible. And it says, "Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his speech until midnight." Now what time would it be if it's the first day of the week and it's dark? Let me read this to you, Acts chapter 20, verse 7, "Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. And there were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered." Why? Because it's dark. "And in a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus, "who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep; and as Paul was long preaching," I'm related, "he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead." Tells you it's dangerous to preach long sermons. "But Paul went down to him, and said, 'Trouble not yourselves, his spirit is still in him.'" And he embraced him and his life came back. And when they came back, they broke bread again. And they talked a long while til daybreak and he departed.
Now was this saying that the first day of the week was a new Sabbath? If it's dark and they say it's the first day of the week, it's what you and I would call Saturday night. Would he begin a journey, a long journey, if Sunday is the new Christian Sabbath? Would he begin this long journey? Well, that wouldn't be the day for that. Jesus said, "Pray your flight is not in the winter or in the Sabbath." Why would Paul recommend that? They'd been together all Sabbath. He said, "I'm going to preach to you as long as I can." It's dark. It's Saturday night. It creeps into now what we call the first day of the week. It's telling the story because he resurrected a young man, not because they're inaugurating the new Sabbath. And he said--but it says that they came together to break bread. Oh, and I gotta jump ahead here. I never even did put some of these verses up on the screen. Look in Acts chapter 2, verse 46. It says, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, "They continued daily with one accord in the temple, "and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their meat with gladness."
What does breaking bread mean? Does it always mean a Communion service biblically? Breaking bread from house to house? When Jesus, on the road to Emmaus, He ate with two disciples. It wasn't a Communion service. They asked Him to bless the bread. They were eating. Have you ever used the expression, "Let's get together and break bread?" Does it mean have a Communion service? Not all the time. It would mean, "Let's eat." And so to say in Acts chapter 20 that this was evidence that it was a religious meeting on Sunday, it doesn't hold water, friends. Not if you're going to, in my opinion, be biblically honest about what the text is saying. It's telling you there was a resurrection. Paul's leaving, he's beginning a journey, they'd finished a Sabbath together, and it's a wonderful miracle. Do you see what I'm saying? So we've just looked at all the texts in the New Testament that talk about the first day of the week. Do any of them say that God has now changed the holiness and the reverence of the seventh day to the first day? They're not saying that. And so we've got to be very careful about building that argument.
Question seven, "Would God have told us if one of the Ten Commandments had been changed?" It says in Psalm 89, verse 34, "My covenant I will not break, nor alter the words that have gone out of my lips." Now, I found out--Karen and I have noticed that driving is different from one state to the next. You know, you drive different here than we do in California. I didn't know if you know that. I'm not going to tell you how it's different, but I just can tell you, you drive differently here. I want you to still love me until the meetings are over. But you still have speed limits. And what if I were to tell you tonight that while you were sleeping last night, the government changed the law regarding the speed limit and now the speed limit on the interstates around Charlotte is 90 miles an hour? How many of you would believe me? Or if I should say, not only did they change the speed limit, we're now going to swap sides of the road, like they do in England? You hadn't heard about that new law? Would any of you believe me? I couldn't fool you with that. Because you know very well that if a government is going to change something that impacts people in such a significant way, they have a responsibility to clearly announce and thoroughly advertise that big change or there's going to be all kinds of confusion and catastrophes, right? They did actually change the side of the road they drove on somewhere in Scandinavia and they had to tell everybody, "Don't forget, tomorrow we're swapping." And it was a real goat-roping, as they would say.
Can you imagine God's people keeping the 7th day of the week for 4,000 years and then somewhere in the New Testament God says, "We're doing a switch. "The holy day. "It's no longer going to be now the seventh day. "If--the first time it'll be the eighth day "because it's going to from then on be the first day of the week." And don't you think the New Testament would be filled with controversy and debate and arguments about this new Christian Sabbath? There's silence. So to say that one of the Ten Commandments has been changed and you gotta dig and study and try and find some biblical gymnastics to prove it-- I'm going to do something that is always a little risky. I'm going to ask the studio to put a camera on you for a moment. Not that you're risky, but what I'm going to do next.
Is there anyone there, anyone out here, if you'll raise your hand, you tell me one place in the whole Bible where we are commanded to keep the first day as the Sabbath? Does that--was that fair? I didn't hear any takers. You know why? I know my Bible, and it's not there. And yet, much of the Christian world has been bamboozled by the devil through history's holy hoax, a day that is not holy. Paul said, "I have not neglected to tell you the whole counsel of God." Paul says so much about circumcision. You know why it's in there? Because here the Jews had had this covenant of circumcision from the time of Abraham until the veil rent in the temple and he says then, you know, Paul says, "Circumcision is nothing. Uncircumcision is nothing. What matters is keeping the commandments." That would have been a great time for him to say, "Circumcision in the Sabbath doesn't matter anymore." Or it's been changed. But he doesn't. I gotta hasten on, because a lot left to share.
Have you heard--I just threw this slide in. Did you hear what happened this week while we were here? Wal-Mart used to give their employees special pay for Sunday work, a little bonus. They've sort of announced that they're not going to do it anymore. All the workers who have been there 5 years or more, they've given them one final bonus check and they said, "From here on, no more Sunday bonus work," because, they said, "The average American is not keeping it like a holy day. We shouldn't be rewarding people." Interesting. Another reason they're doing it is they want to keep their stores open Sunday, and they figure it supports blue laws by giving people bonus pay. You know what a blue law is? They're Sunday laws. Still on the books in some states.
Could the disciples have changed the Sabbath day even if they wanted to? No. Man can't change the law of God. Deuteronomy 4, verse 2, "You shall not add to the word which I command you, or take away from it." It goes on to say, "That you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." Do not add to it. Do not take away from it. In Revelation, have you read those frightening prophecies at the end of the Bible? "If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy," it goes on to say, "God shall take away his part from the Book of Life." We shouldn't be adding to or taking away from the Word of God. His Word, "Til heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle," a jot was like a little dot for us. A tittle, the crossing of a T, "will in no wise pass from the law til all is fulfilled." That means recognized and kept. So if
Sunday's not there to honor the Resurrection, what does the Lord have? How do Christians remember Jesus' death, burial, and Resurrection? Romans 6, verse 3, "Or do you not know "that as many of us as have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?" And it goes on to say, "Therefore we are buried with Him "through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised "from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in a newness of life." So, did God establish something to memorialize His death, burial, and Resurrection? Yes, but it wasn't a new Sabbath, because there was nothing wrong with the old Sabbath. Think about it.
Did God establish the Sabbath before or after sin? Before sin. So was it part of His perfect plan? Yes. Why would he change it? He says, "I'm the Lord. I don't change. There is nothing wrong with it." And then you have a similar verse in Colossians 2:12, "Buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised "with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." Baptism, again, is connected with the Resurrection. So every time a person is baptized, it's like they have been raised from the dead. He didn't create a new Sabbath day to memorialize that.
Number ten, "How does the Bible refer to the first day of the week?" Is it a holy day, or do we treat it in a unique way? If you look in Ezekiel 46, verse 1, it says, "Thus says the Lord God: 'The gateway of the inner court that faces towards the east,'" he's speaking of the temple, "shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it will be opened." Now the whole week there is divided into two categories. You've got the Sabbath, and you got 6 working days. So if Sunday is not the Sabbath, what is it? "Six days thou shalt labor and do all thy work." You know, the Sabbath command, we always think about where it says, "Thou shalt not do any work," it's a positive command. It says, "Six days you shall also work." God wants us not to just sit around all the time. Part of the Sabbath command, Christians ought to be productive people. It says, "Not only rest the seventh day," He says, "be busy the other days," amen?
Number 11, "Well, if Sunday keeping isn't in the Bible," here is where we all bring it together, "where did it come from?" How did this hoax begin? Matthew 15, verse 9, Jesus said, "And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." They're manmade commandments that sort of became doctrines that they teach. You can look in the Encyclopedia Britannica, you can look in a lot of history books. It is pretty clear. The earliest recognition of the observance of Sunday, it's a constitution of Constantine. He established it in 321 AD. They called it the Edict of Milan. It wasn't the Son day, Son of God, S-O-N, it was the Sun day, S-U-N. And here's where you find an excerpt of that law, "Enacting that courts of justice and inhabitants of towns, and workshops were to rest on Sunday," notice the spelling. And again, you can read here from the Codex Justinianus, and it says, "On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates "and the people residing in the cities rest, and let all the workshops be closed."
Now, what happened is the Christians thought, "You know, if we want to bring "more of the pagans into our church, "maybe if we start to associate with their day of worship, they'll feel better about joining." You know, let me just give you a quick overview, and I need both hands for this. Have you enjoyed Charles's singing? He's got an amazing voice. I always tease, if you put him in a body cast, he couldn't sing. It's just--he sings, it's aerobic and Kelly's playing. And sometimes I need both hands to preach, so I know how he feels. For years Satan tried to destroy Christianity with plan A. Plan A was extermination, persecution. They burnt them at the stake, they stoned them, they fed them to lions. You've all heard this. Christianity was called religio illicita, a forbidden religion. Paul was killed in Rome, Peter was killed in Rome, because the religion was forbidden. They saw it as a threat. But the Christian church kept growing. The more they tried to kill them, the more they spread.
Finally, a very clever emperor came along by the name of Constantine the Great. And he said, "Look, the Christians are-- real Christians," he said, "pretty peaceful people. They're not hurting anybody." His mother converted to Christianity. He said, "I can't kill Mom." And so he claimed to have a vision that he was fighting the Battle of Milvian Bridge. He said he saw the sign of a cross in the sky and all his soldiers painted a cross on their shields and they won the battle. And they said, "That was a sign. We should all become Christians." And he legalized Christianity. His conversion was pretty nominal. He wasn't even baptized til the time of his death. He ordered his army to march through the Tiber River. He said, "You're all baptized now." Is that how you baptize someone? You order an army? You know what happened to all those pagans in Rome? They worship on the first day of the week and they had statues of Peter-- of Jupiter and Apollos and Mercury, and they had all these pagan rites and ceremonies. They went down dry pagans, they came up wet pagans. And all of a sudden, some of the church leaders saw, "We've been persecuted for centuries. It's wonderful now to have a legalized religion," and they began to-- Everyone suddenly wanted to be a Christian. It became very vogue.
And so the screening process of who became a Christian just completely went out the window. And all these pagans came into the church and they said, "Well, we want to keep our idols," and the church leaders said, "Well, you better rename them. "Better take, you know, Jupiter, Mercury, and Apollos, and call them Peter, James, and John." And they had statues of Diana. They said, "Call her Mary." And all of a sudden the church used to be settled in Jerusalem, capital now came to Rome, went through a dramatic change. One of those changes, the Jews were very unpopular during that time. Anything connected with Judaism, they wanted to get away from. So to distance themselves, for a while Christians kept both days. But since the Sabbath day, the church leaders would say, "It's a day of fasting." Well, the Bible doesn't say that. But the Sunday was a day of feasting. Which would you prefer? A day of fasting, or a day of feasting? Gradually, over time, people started to abolish the seventh day biblical Sabbath in preference for the more popular celebration of the Sunday. And that's how it made its way into the church. It wasn't because of a command of God. It was because of a compromise.
Again, Arthur Weigall and his book, "Paganism and Christianity," "The church made a sacred day of Sunday, "largely because it was a festival and because-- "it was a weekly festival of the sun; "for it was the definite Christian policy "to take over the pagan festivals "to endear themselves to the people by tradition, and to give them Christian significance." They just began to say, "Well, let's just attach a Christian name to it and bring it all in." "The church, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath or seventh day of--" By the way, this is Catholic Encyclopedia. I want you to note that as I'm reading it. "The church--" Who? The Bible? "The church," at the time of Jesus or 300 years later? Council of Laodicea, they began to call it the Lord's Day. "The church after changing the day of rest "from the Jewish Sabbath or the seventh day of the week, "made the first day of the-- "or the third commandment refer to Sunday-- "to the first and made the third commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept as the Lord's day."
Matter of fact, I've got a copy here of the Ten Commandments. I stopped at a local Catholic church, and I snapped a picture. You probably can't see it blown up, but they've reorganized the Ten Commandments. How do you get the Sabbath to go from the fourth to the third commandment? You eliminate the second commandment about idolatry. And that's what happened here. You'll notice the commandment about idolatry is missing. Well, how do you keep the number ten? Split the tenth commandment about covetousness and say, "'Don't covet your neighbor's wife,' that's one. 'Don't covet your neighbor's house,' that's the other one." And so they changed the times and laws.
What do some Sunday churches say about this problem? These are quotes not from my church but from other churches. The scholars all know what the score is here. They have got different answers but they all know that you can't find biblical support for Sunday being a replacement for the Sabbath day or a new commandment. Baptist Manual, written by Doctor Edward T. Hiscox, "There is no--" a Baptist, of course. "There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week." If you read from Alexander Campbell, Church of Christ, "I do not believe that the Lord's day was changed from the seventh to the first day." Catholic. This is James Cardinal Gibbons, "You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you'll not find a single line," that's why I opened it up to you, "authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. "The Catholic Church for over 1,000 years "before the existence of a Protestant "by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."
It was done through edicts of the church, not through the commandments of Christ. It is a manmade tradition that started as a practice that was popular and they finally made it official. And I'll say more about that later. "The holy day, or the Sabbath, "was changed from Saturday to Sunday, the day of the Lord "(not based on scriptural authority, "but) from the church's sense of its own power. "People who think the Scriptures should be the sole authority should logically become Seventh-day Adventists," I kind of like that, "and keep Saturday holy." That's kind of interesting, isn't it? Christian church. "There's not any place in the Bible, there's no intimation of such a change," speaking of-- and this is a book called "The First Day Observance." Episcopal. "There is--is there any command in the New Testament "to change the day of the weekly rest from Saturday to Sunday? None!" This is not written by my church. This is Episcopal Manual of Christian Doctrine. Methodist. Harris Franklin Rall wrote, "Take the matter of Sunday. "There is no passage telling Christians to keep the day holy."
And I could go on and on, friends. As I showed you, there is no verse. You write one down, you give it to me, I'll share it. I remember somebody once said, "What about that verse that says, 'At various times in sundry manners'?" And they thought the word sundry meant Sunday. No, that means various. You can look at "The Augsburg Confession," Lutheran, "The observance of the Lord's Day (Sunday) is not found on an-- any command of God." Presbyterian, "The Christian Sabbath (Sunday) is not in the Scriptures." It's--this is widely known. This is why it's just amazing to me, and I remember-- I've got to be gentle with you, because I remember when I first heard this, I thought, "I feel like I've been fooled." And you know, some people, all their life they believed a certain thing and you hear something different and it shakes, it rocks your foundation. And so I want to pray for you, because some of you are hearing this for the first time and you're thinking, "What would this mean "if I step out in faith and do something about this? "I didn't know this before, but now I know it. Now what do I do?"
Is it true the Sabbath command is not repeated in the New Testament? You just sometimes hear people say, "Well, the reason we keep the other nine commandments "but not the Sabbath is because the Sabbath is not found in the New Testament." That's a Christian urban myth. It's not at all true. The one commandment that is not repeated in the New Testament is the third commandment, "Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." I don't think there's anybody here who believes because it's not specifically referenced in the New Testament, it's now okay for Christians to take God's name in vain. The Sabbath is, indeed, mentioned 60 times in the New Testament. Couple of references, Hebrews 4:4, "He spoke in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "and God rested on the seventh day from all His works." That's pretty explicit. And you can read later in that same chapter, verse 9, "Therefore there remains a rest--" and that word rest there in the Greek is a sabbatismos. "There remains a Sabbath for the people of God."
So there's no question that the New Testament people believed that the Sabbath is still intact. "What is the apostle Paul saying in Romans 14:5 and 6?" Got to take a look at this one real quick. And I think you'll see it right here in your Bible. Some people quote this and they say, "Well, some of you want to keep Saturday "and some keep Sunday. Don't judge anyone. It doesn't matter." No, I think we've got to be careful not to condemn or judge somebody, but Paul is not talking about the Sabbath. Let's read it. Romans 14, verse 5 and 6, "One person esteems one day "above another; another esteems every day alike. "Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind. "He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; "he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it." Then he goes on. First of all, in Romans 14, does it mention the word Sabbath? No. Does it mention the seventh day? No. You’ve got to read a verse in its context. What is Paul talking about, and who is he talking to? He's talking to Roman believers-- it's the Book of Romans-- who are being pestered by the Jewish converts to Christianity, saying they needed to keep the annual ceremonial Sabbaths, Yom Kippur, Feast of Trumpets, Passover, so forth. There are seven of them.
Now, there's a difference between the commandment of the Sabbath and the other annual feasts and holy days. The Ten Commandments. God spoke the Sabbath with His own voice, He wrote it with His own finger. He wrote it on stone. It was placed inside the ark of the covenant. Existed before there was sin in the world. The Jewish annual feast, written on paper, written by Moses, came after sin, was not placed in the ark of the covenant, was in a pocket on the outside. They were nailed to the cross. They're very different. But to say that-- Can you imagine any pastor standing before his congregation reading Romans 14 and saying, "If you want to come to church on Sunday, you come. If you don't, whatever day you want to come." They don't ever use it that way, I can tell you right now. They only use that verse when they hear the Sabbath truth. And the implication is keep Sunday. Paul wasn't talking about that. He's talking about this other debate you can find listed several times in the New Testament.
Last question here. "Does Revelation say God's people keep His commandments?" Let's look at it. "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant," that means the remainder. Now, first of all, who's the dragon? Devil, Satan, you're right. It tells you right in that chapter. That old dragon, the serpent, and the devil. Who is the woman? A woman in prophecy represents a church. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loves the church." And it says, "I've likened the daughter of Zion to a delicate and a comely woman."
Now this woman, it says, is clothed with light. Sun, moon, and stars. God says to the church, "You are the light of the world." The dragon hates her and he goes to make war with the remainder, the people in the last days, the leftovers of her seed, who keep the commandments of God. You might be thinking, "Well, Pastor Doug, as long as we keep some of them." Everybody here keeps some of them some of the time. God is looking for people who will be consistent, amen? Prisons are full of people that keep some of them some of the time. God is hoping for more from us through His power, amen? The dragon is angry, and he wants us to break it. He wants to separate us from the power of God, "which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus."
You can go to Revelation chapter 22:14, "Blessed--" How many of you want to be blessed? Jesus, in the Beatitudes, he said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. Blessed--" Here's another blessed. "Blessed are those who do His commandments, "that they might have a right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates of the city." I want that. Don't you? Everlasting life, it's talking about. Paul says in Hebrews 5, verse 9, "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all of them that obey him." For who? All that do what? Obey Him.
You know, Peter says in the Book of Acts, "The Holy Spirit whom God has given to those that obey Him." Holy Spirit's a mighty power, and if you don't want to use it for God's service, it's a dangerous thing. If we'd surrender and say, "Lord, I'm willing to do Your will, whatever it is." Jesus said, Matthew 7:21, "Not every one that says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will be in the kingdom;" but those who do what? "He who does the will of My Father in heaven." Not every--are there going to be a lot of people, Jesus said, in the last days that'll come to the Lord and say, "Lord, Lord, I prophesied in Your name, I went to church every week." And you know what He says? "Depart from Me you who work iniquity." You know what the word iniquity is? Lawlessness. Look it up. So what is the will of God? Psalms 40, verse 8, "I delight--" Is that a good thing or a bad thing? "I delight to do Your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart." What's the new covenant? God says, "I'll put My law in their hearts." And isn't that what you want, friends? And then doing his will is a delight. When you love somebody, it's a delight. And God says, "Look, I've made an appointment with you "every week on the Sabbath. I want to see you. I love you." And Jesus says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments."
You know, I heard years ago about a man that, in England-- this is like couple hundred years ago, he had a yardage shop where they sold fabric. And in his shop he had a table where he would unfold the fabric, and he'd measure it, then he'd cut it and sell it to the customers. And after--and he inherited this shop from his father and his grandfather. One day a customer came back in and said, "You know, I was very precise in how much I ordered. I got back to make my pillows or curtains and I've realized that you actually sold me short." Well, this man who owned the yardage shop was an honest Christian, a very honest man. He'd never been accused of that. He said, "Well, let's check it." He took the fabric, he laid it out. And it was--he said, "Look, it's right where it's supposed to be. You ordered 3 yards, here they are." And the guy said, "Let me get an actual tape measure and bring it in." He brought and he measured it. It was 3 inches short. And the man checked and he looked at his table. His table was 3 inches short. And he'd been selling people 3 inches short for years.
Now, you've got to understand, many years ago in England, the measurements would change. The inch was the distance on the king's thumb. The foot was the length of the king's foot. And as they went from one monarchy to another, sometimes these standards-- the knuckle. Karen's correcting me. Not the whole thumb, the knuckle, yeah. And so all these measurements, the span, and you know, in the Bible it says a cubit. That was a measure-- measurement here. And so these things would change from one monarchy to the other, and he was going by an old standard. Any of you ever gone from the metric to the standard and mess you up? Now, that man was an honest man. He had no idea that for years he had been selling people short. No one had ever called him on it, because it was just a little bit.
Now, here's the question. If he continues to use that table measurement, is he still an honest man? There's a lot of godly people that go to church on Sunday, they don't know. God winks at their ignorance. They love the Lord. They're Spirit-filled. They're doing wonderful things. Karen and I went today to the Billy Graham Library and just saw a tremendous ministry happening. And so we don't question that. We believe we have brothers and sisters in Christ that maybe don't know these things. Sin is knowing to do good and not doing it. The Bible says, "If we continue to sin willfully--" Hebrews 10:26. "If we continue to sin willfully after we've received "the knowledge of the truth, "there remains no sacrifice for sin "but a certain fearful looking forward to of judgment and fiery indignation."
So sin is when you know God's will and you say, "I don't want to do Your will. I'd rather do my own thing. I want to do what's convenient. I want to do what's popular." And I know, friends, some of you are hearing this for the first time, and if there's a struggle going on in your heart, I want to just plead with you. And then I'm going to pray for you. Do you want to know what the Bible says? You find it in the Word. Do you want to please Jesus? If you're waiting to please your friends, your family, your tradition, your church, you're never going to make anyone happy. You've got to make God first. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." And just be honest. Say, "Lord, first and foremost, I want to know what do You want Me to do?" Don't get nervous because do you think that the will of God will ever lead you to a bad place? If the Lord shows you a truth, is it to be a burden or a blessing? And so you might encounter a struggle when you learn something new. And it was probably pretty hard for some of those early believers in Christianity when they got thrown out of the synagogue because they accepted Jesus. So don't think you're the first one that may say, "I had no idea that I have been running from the will of God." It's like those people when Peter was preaching on the Day of Pentecost and they said, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" And he said, "I know you did it ignorantly. You didn't know." But God wants His people to return to the truth.
God is calling His children together from many different persuasions all over the world, back to the Bible before Jesus comes. And I want to be one of those people. I want to--you never have to be afraid, friends. If you say--if the Lord says, "Why did you keep the seventh day?" You say, "Lord, you did. I'm doing what Jesus did." Isn't that always a good thing to do?
So if you're doing what Jesus did, it doesn't matter what anyone else does. You're safe if you can point to Jesus and say, "He was my example." A Christian is a follower of Christ, amen? I want to be one of those, don't you? Jesus says, "Come unto me, all you who are heavy laden. I'll give you rest." He wants to give you that rest, friends. And He wants to bless you.
You know, I know a lot of you have questions. And we have a website that's probably the most popular website on the Internet. If you just type in the word Sabbath, this website pops up. It's sponsored by "Amazing Facts" called "Sabbath Truth." It's sábado bíblico in Spanish. It's in Korean. It's in a number of languages. It's got all the answers straight from the Bible, and we recommend you take a look at that and share it with your friends. But as we close, I want to pray for you. Your group leaders, they'll give you some more information after we pray, and so you stay by.
Father in heaven, I pray that each person here will just open our hearts right now and say, "Lord, I've heard new things tonight. "I've heard strange things. I want to pray that it's rooted in the Word." And, Lord, give us all hearts that are willing to do Your will. Bless each person. Help them know how to apply these things to their lives. Fill them with the Spirit and remind them that You love them. Pray in Jesus' name, amen.