Sabbath, Sunday, and the New Covenant

Narrator: In approximately A.D. 95, John the Revelator said, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." Over 4000 years earlier, God created the seventh day Sabbath as part of creation week. God's seven day cycle still exists in the 21st century and so does his Sabbath. Join us in this three part series titled, "The Lord's Day with Pastor Doug Batchelor." And now part one, "Sabbath, Sunday, and the New Covenant."

Doug Batchelor: In Matthew 11 verse 28, Jesus said, "Come onto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Resting in Jesus in his finished work of salvation is the source of true Christian peace. The Bible also speaks about a weekly day of rest and worship, known as the Sabbath. In fact, the word Sabbath means rest. That day that God designed to be a source of blessing, has become a topic of confusion even controversy among many church goers.

In the following two-part series, we will carefully consider the high points of this Sabbath subject. From a biblical perspective, we will address, "What is the Sabbath? Is it still in effect for new testament Christians? What day of the week is the Sabbath and does it matter? Has the Sabbath been altered or deleted by the new covenant?" I pray that you will keep your heart and mind open as we explore the rest of the story in The Sabbath, Sunday and the New Covenant.

Father in Heaven, now as we embark in a special sense on this study regarding the Sabbath truth, I'm praying that the Holy Spirit will be present not only with the one who is to speak and teach but that- Christ and his angels will be here to expel any evil influence that would be distraction. Help us to hear what the spirit is saying to the church. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Audience: Amen.

Batchelor: The Sabbath, Sunday and the New Covenant. Now the first place we find a reference to the Sabbath truth is after the creation week. When the Lord, of course, in the first six days made everything that is, then at the conclusion of that, he made one more day. He didn't make anything on that day but he still made a day because we lived in the dimension of time. If you have your bibles, I invite you to join me in Genesis 2:2,3. And here is what it says, "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.

Now one thing we discover right from the beginning is that, God makes the Sabbath to be a blessing for his creatures primarily for man. Do you remember Jesus said in the Gospel of Mark 2, "The Sabbath was made for man." How many man were living in the world when God established the first sacred seventh day?

Audience: One.

Batchelor: One? Two? Adam and Eve, one family. They were one flesh but two people. And they were both Jews, correct?

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Batchelor: No. Some people think that the Sabbath is a Jewish institution but Jesus said it was made for man, meaning mankind. Not only it was made for man, it was made for the creatures. Later when you look at the Sabbath commandment, you'll also recognize that God not only- commanded that, "Man, rest." on that blessed day but the animals be given, not just Jewish animals, an opportunity to rest. We see at the very beginning, God does three things in particular with this first sacred seventh day that he establishes. God rested, he blessed it and he sanctified the seventh day.

Now, I'm going to go through eight points here that help us to better understand what the Sabbath is and we'll spend plenty of time on just the first points, so don't get scared. The first thing we want to do is find out, "What is the Sabbath day?" What's it all about? I think definitions can sometimes come in handy. If you look in the dictionary here is what it says in the Strong's Concordance, I'm sorry, of the Sabbath definition. The Sabbath means to repose, to desist from exertion, to cease, to celebrate, to keep Sabbath, leave, put away, put down, make to rest, to pause.

You know this last week, I was watching a video tape. It deals with the history of the man's exploration of the moon. I'll tell you, it really did move me because, those of you who know me know that I have a birth defect, I love the sensation of flying. It's too, a fault. If I'm on a jet ski, I look for the waves and I jump. If I'm on a snow ski, I go to the moguls and I jump. When I had a motorcycle, guess what I did.

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Batchelor: I didn't get a street bike. That's no fun. I got a dirt bike so I can jump. I like that sensation of going through the air. I've talked about hang gliding and parachuting off an airplane. You know why I scuba dive? It's like flying. You're weightless onto the water and it's very much like flying. What I wouldn't give if I could be the first minister on that international space station.

Audience: [laughter]

Batchelor: I'm hoping that one day they'll take applications. I would love to do that. When I was watching this documentary, incidentally it's called for all mankind and it traces the history of the Apollo mission and some of the ups and downs. They were interviewing these men that walked on the moon. They've got the whole world-- the planet earth is staring back at them and they know everybody on that planet is watching them and they have given a mission.

Billions of dollars have been spent to get them on this gray desolate planet. They were bouncing around using up their oxygen and they've got this agenda that's supposed to pick up so many rocks and Huston's talking to them every moment of the time. One of the astronauts said, "With all those people watching you and all that money invested in getting you there." He said that it would've been wrong for us if we didn't just stop and ignore everybody for a minute and say, "Hey, we're on the moon." They had to just pause and look around and they said to each other, "Do you realize we're the only people on this planet?" Now one of the astronauts said, "It must have been like that for Adam and Eve. To realize that here's this world and we're the only two humans." That must have been something but they had to stop and they said, "Someday it's going to be over and we'll be back on the earth. We've probably won't get a second trip. We need to pause and digest where we are." They had to stop and think about all those people back on earth that were thinking about them.

That's part of the reason of the Sabbath. A week that so busy in life living that we forget why we're alive and where we are and forget to count our blessings. The Sabbath is a time of pause. It's a time of rest. It's a time to cease and to stop and to commune with the God. That brings me to my next point. One of the important aspects of the Sabbath is a time of quality communion with God. Now the reason this is so important is because God is love and you cannot have a love relationship with somebody without having communion. All love relationships depend on quality time to communicate if those relationships are going to grow.

The bible tells us that God is love. This is one of his characteristics. The devil hates the Sabbath truth and he's attacking the Sabbath truth because the devil knows that if he can destroy the quality time that we have with God, it will undermine and erode our relationship with God. I don't know how you are, but the devil does everything he can do in our family to get us so busy through the week that when the Sabbath comes, we're not prepared to just rest and soak up our relationship with God. The devil hates this truth. That's why I thought it was so important for us to talk about it.

God is love and if we're going to love God, if we're going to be like him we need quality time. The Sabbath was that dimension of time that God protected. He made a date with humanity that the relationship could grow. The Sabbath is a time for physical rest. Now, you know, we do get tired. Even in the Garden of Eden, God had given man the task of dressing and keeping the garden. He was to have a day of rest. The Sabbath command, of course, tells us even the beast of burden have a time of rest. I remember reading in that book by Mark Finley called The Almost Forgotten Day about these people that were too reign in Portugal. There was this beautiful monastery up on this precipice, up on this cliff.

A beautiful view from up there but the only way to get up there was to get in an old wicker basket. Then an aged monk would climb in there with you and hoist you to the top with a series of pulleys and you could surveythe beautiful scenery. One of the tourist on the way down looked at the old basket and the fray in rope and he said to the monk, "How often do you replace the rope?" He very dryly said, "Whenever it breaks."

Audience: [laughter]

Batchelor: Unfortunately, a lot of people wait until they're ready to break before they take any action. Part of the purpose of the Sabbath is to provide the needed rest in an exceptionally stressed out high-strung society. Let me read a couple of quotes that I found on stress. A Cornell university study of working couple confirms that detrimental effects that work related stress has on families. Married couples with children burden by long hours of paid work, report the lowest quality of life among working couples. Additionally, 43% of adults suffer adverse health effects from stress. 75 to 90% of all physicians office visits are attributed to stress-related ailments. Did you get that? 75-90% of all physician office visits are related to stress-related ailments or complaints. According to the American Physiological Association, stress is linked to the six leading causes of death in the United States. Heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide. A lot of this suffering could be alleviated if people took the time that God had devised for us to rest.

Due in part to laptop computers and mobile phones and pagers, the concept of leaving work at the office has almost become obsolete. Eight-hour work days and 40-hour work weeks are no longer the norm. The emerging economy runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Commented the distinguished political economist and former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Rich, "The average working American adult works the equivalent of nearly two weeks more than he or she put in two decades ago. Americans now work longer than the notoriously industrious Japanese. Celebrating Sabbath, or a day of rest, is a way for Americans to reestablish a boundary line between paid work and the rest of life." I like the way that's worded, the rest of life. We sometimes are so busy living, that we're not living.

One of the reasons is for physical rest, which we all need to maintain relationships and good health. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation. Every Sabbath day we remember that we are created. Evolution is sweeping a lot of the educational system like an epidemic. In spite of the fact, there's really no scientific evidence for it. If people were keeping the Sabbath the way God designed I doubt there would be an evolutionist because the Sabbath reminds us every week that we are created.

Notice what it says here Exodus 31:15-17. You'll have to jot this down. "Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” The Sabbath is the sign that God is the creator. And this is not just for the children of Israel, but this is for spiritual Israel as well.

It's a sign of redemption. You can read in Ezequiel 20:12, "Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them." Now we've seen that the Sabbath is a sign that God is the creator. Anybody here need recreating?

The Bible says, "Create in me a clean heart, oh God." The Sabbath is a sign that God can recreate us and it's a sign that he sanctifies. Anybody here need sanctifying? Every Sabbath reminds us that God is the one who sanctifies us. That's why the Lord told us to remember the Sabbath day and that's why the devil wants us to forget the Sabbath day. Because it has an influence of eroding that recreation, that new creation, that sanctifying influence, the rest in peace that God designs that we should enjoy.

The Sabbath is a time for corporate worship. Some people don't know this. I even run into a number of Sabbath-keeping Christians that say, "Well, the idea of the Sabbath is you just make sure you sit in a hammock and rest part of the day." Is that what the Bible teaches or is it supposed to be a time to come together and to worship God collectively?

You might write this down, Leviticus 23:3, "Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation." Any of you ever been to a convocation where you were the only one there? Probably it wasn't very interesting, was it? A convocation means an assembly, a convening. It's a time not only for physical rest but it's a time for us to convene and to hear the Word of God and the principles of truth proclaimed. The Sabbath is a holy convocation for corporate worship.

Now, let me tell you another reason that the subject in the issue of the Sabbath is a specially important in the last days. Worship is a critical issue in the book of Revelation. The beast power is compelling all of those who are lost to worship the beast and his image. The first murder in the universe was when Cain murdered his brother Abel. Why was he murdered? It was over the subject of worship. Not just who would worship but who you worship and how you worship.

Whenever someone shrugs their shoulders and they say it doesn't really matter who or when or how we worship God, they don't know their Bibles very well. Because the prominent issue through the Bible is really who is your God and who do you worship. Every Sabbath day we are acknowledging who it is. The Sabbath is a sign that we worship the God who is our creator and our Sustainer.

You remember reading, if you go in your Bibles to the book of Revelation 14, one of the prominent messages that's to go to the world in the last days are the three angel's messages. One of them states, the first angel's message, "Worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." That statement from the mouth of an angel comes almost verbatim from the Sabbath commandment, "For in six days the Lord made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." It's a time for corporate worship.

Another thing is the Sabbath is a universal institution. You've already heard me say that Adam and Eve were not Jewish. Now, I'm Jewish so I can say this. Adam and Eve, we're all related. Anyone here not related to Adam and Eve? Just want to check. Anyone here not related to Noah? Good, that makes us all kin. We're all brethren.

Adam and Eve, Sabbath was made for man, meaning mankind back in the very beginning. It's an institution all people need rest and the Bible bears that out. I've got several scriptures you can look at. One is Isaiah 56:6 and you can read there where it says, "Also the sons of the stranger", speaking of non-Jews. "That join themselves to the Lord", incidentally every Christian becomes a spiritual Jew. We join ourselves to the Lord, we are grafted into the stock of Israel. The Bible is so clear on this.

You read the book of Romans, "The sons of the strangers that join themselves, that are grafted into the Lord to serve him, and to love the Lord, and love the name of the Lord, to be His servants. Every one that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it." He's talking about the sons of the stranger. "And takes hold of my covenant." This is also the new covenant and we'll deal with that in our next presentation. "Even them will I bring to my holy habitation and make them miserable in my house of prayer." Is that what it says? "Make them joyful in my house of prayer." The Bible tells us that the Sabbath is to be a time where we are given great joy.

Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man. M-A-N, is an interesting way to spell Jew. Is made for all people. One of the most common arguments you hear about the Sabbath truth is that, "Well, that's just for the Jews. Christians don't need to worry about that anymore." Then another important point under what is the Sabbath day, it's one of the Ten Commandments. You can read it in Exodus 20:8-11. The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments.

Don't forget, the Bible says all things that were made were made by Him. Who is the Him? "In the beginning it was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things that were made, were made by Him." Who is the Word? Jesus. All things were made, were made by Him. "Who is it", you think, "that wrote the Ten Commandments?" That's right, I believe it was Jesus. Certainly, he was in opposition to the Father and so this was something that he participated in. It's one of the Ten Commandments.

Let's read it together from Exodus 20:8-11, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor the stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, and He rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

Now, I want you to notice some things as we look at Exodus 20 where it gives the Ten Commandments. It says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Jews." Is that what it says? It calls that the Sabbath of the Lord your God. You remember in the beginning that says God rested. It's the Sabbath of the Lord, it dates all the way back to creation. It's the longest of the Ten Commandments. It's in the middle of the Ten Commandments. It is the only one of the Ten Commandments that begins with the word remember and the seal of God is found in this Commandment. What do I mean by that? A seal contains three components. A seal generally has a person's name, their title and their territory. When the president makes a speech, at this point, it will say, "President George W. Bush, president to his office, United States of America" it's his territory and if he stamps a document, it will have those three elements on it. When Jesus was put in the tomb, Pontius Pilate sealed the tomb. That seal was no doubt stamp with Pontius Pilate, Governor, Judea. When Darius had Daniel put in the lion's den, there was a government's seal put on the mouth of the lion's den that the purpose be not changed and that seal said, "Darius, King", his name, his title, Mede of Persia, his territory.

The name, the title and the territory of God is in this commandment. For in 6 days, the Lord, that's his name, Jehovah, made, created, that's his office, he is the creator, the heavens and the earth and the sea, that's his territory, everything up and everything down and everything in between. The seal of God is found in this commandment. It is one of the most important commandments and yet, the devil has been attacking it in a special way. The sad thing is that some Christians and even pastors are supporting that.

When the children of Israel were lead out of Egypt and they went through the red sea. Some people say, "Well, God created the Sabbath commandment at Mount Sinai for the Jewish people." If you read your bible, you'll find out that's not true. Remember in Exodus 16, when they got hungry, they had to pick up the manna. It says, "Then Moses said, "Eat today"- "Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you'll not find it in the field." The manna was rained down by God from heaven. 6 days a week, they would gather twice as much on the 6th day, so they have sufficient for the 7th day 'cause there would be no manna then.

This is Exodus 16. Some people went out, because they didn't believe the Lord, looking for manna in the field on the 7th day and God said, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments?" God refer to the Sabbath as one of his commandments. Exodus 16 is when this manna experience takes place. God does not even speak his law until Exodus 20 and the written copy is not handed down until later still.

When they came out of Egypt, they knew what the Sabbath commandment was all about. It goes back to creation, it was not created, it was not new at Mount Sinai. Second point, here is where a lot of people start to get choked up. Which day is the seventh day of the week? Which day is the Sabbath? Which day of the week is the Sabbath? Well, I'd like to read it to you right from the bible. If you look in your bibles in Genesis 2 again. Let's take a look at that, verses 2 and 3.

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. God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. Notice here it says three times, the seventh day, the seventh day, the seventh day. Whenever God says something three times, that is very significant. The angels say, "Holy, holy, holy." in Isaiah 6.

Speaking of the Triune God, holy for the father, holy for the son, holy for the holy spirit. In revelation, the beast power is identified by three numbers, 6-6-6. Those who get the mark of the beast are told these numbers as special way to help identify what that power is. God's people are identified, too, by a number. The number is 7. The seventh day, the seventh day, the seventh day. You know the bible says that God's people have their father's name in their foreheads. And the name of God is found in the fourth commandment.

Now, if you don't believe the calendar, you should believe the Webster's Dictionary. What is the seventh day of the week? Saturday, noun, the seventh day of the week, Webster's Dictionary. Just in case you've thought maybe there was something confusing, I also put in Sunday just in case you're wondering. Sunday, the first day of the week. Now if that's clear, say Amen.

Audience: Amen.

Batchelor: Yet, so many people think, "No, it must have been changed." I like to do an Amazing Fact with my radio program each week. Somebody gave me something I thought was something really interesting. On train tracks, now you have to listen carefully, okay? Did you know why the distance between the rails on train tracks, better known as the US Railroad Gauge is exactly 4 feet 8.5 inches? That's a very odd number. Why was that measurement used? Because that's the way they built them in England and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English build them that size? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the horse drawn trams that went around London and that's the gauge they used, 4 feet 8.5 inches. Why, you ask, did they used that gauge? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons that used that spacing of 4 feet 8.5 inches. Okay, why did the wagons used that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels will break because they did not fit in the old ruts on many of the long distance roads.

Who built these old roads that became rutted? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since. The ruts? The initial ruts which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons were first made by the Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made by imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard for the rail gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches and much of the world, I might add, derives from the original specifications for an imperial Roman army war chariot.

Why did the Romans choose that width? The imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the rear end of two war horses. Alas, the influence of all ruts tends to live on forever. The railroads around North America are gauged the way they are. They have to make the turns very wide or the trains would fly off the tracks 'cause the gauge is so narrow, it's gauged after a Roman war chariot? Doesn't make any sense. So many times people cling the things just because their locked in and they never really evaluate why.

All traditions die hard. Well, people are surprised to learn that Sunday is not the seventh day of the week, Saturday is the seventh day of the week. There's a lot of ways we can know that. First of all, of course, the bible tells us that the seventh day is the day that God blessed, you can go to the dictionary. Even the events around the death of Jesus are very strong evidence. Most of us know, the Christ died on the sixth day, the bible calls it the preparation day. Jesus died on what often is called the good what?

Audience: Friday.

Batchelor: Good Friday. Jesus even kept to Sabbath in his death. He rested in the tomb from his work of saving men. He kept to Sabbath. The bible says the women went home, prepare the spices and then kept to Sabbath according to the commandment. That's at Luke 23. Then, it says that he rose Sunday, which is the first day of the week. Easter Sunday, the day of the resurrection is called what? Easter Sunday. You've got a very clear outline there just from the history of the bible. If that's not adequate, there's a nation of people all around the planet known as Jewish, who are very zealous about their religion.

That boy there who's praying has on his forehead, a box that contains some of the Ten commandments. You think they forgot what day the Sabbath was? Now, you might convince me that there could have been a Jew or maybe even a whole Jewish family that was incarcerated or deserted on an island ship wreck that lost track of time and forgot what day was the seventh day. I would be reluctant to believe that there's this nation scattered all over the world and they all simultaneously got mixed up on their days.

There's no question about what day the seventh day of the week is. Not only that but you've just got your normal calendars you could look at. Somebody gave me something I thought was interesting. Did you know that in 108 languages -- I wanted to bring it in and show it to you. Now, the fact, one of our members here, gave me a scroll. Anyone here speak Spanish? How do you say the seventh day of the week, Saturday in Spanish?

Audience: Sabado

Batchelor: Sabado. Anyone speak Russian? [Russian language]. 108 languages, someone actually gave it to me, in their original dialects, where the word for the seventh day of the week is the equivalent of Sabbath day. How could that be that all these people from all over the world still have a seven day week and they speak this language? Could it be because as they disperse from the Tower of Babel? They all knew about the Sabbath day going back to the Garden of Eden. 108 languages of the world to seventh day of the week is the Sabbath. There's a lot of languages that I can't speak but I could site for you now.

Why the number seven? Why is it so important to God? In the bible, especially in the book, Revelation, you'll see that the number seven represents a complete cycle of time. I think, maybe you heard me say before, if you take seven circles of equal diameter, pennies, dimes, quarters, as long as they're all the same, you line six of them together, edge to edge. The internal diameter will be exactly the same as anyone of the surrounding ones. This is one of the strongest dimensions for construction. That's why bees use it in their hive. They've got one in the middle surrounded by six for a total of how many? Mathematically, this is the only way seven works. Seven in the Bible represents a complete cycle. The week, the time, the dimension we live in is six days surrounding one, all revolving around that sacred time with God in the middle. It does make a difference what day. Some people say as long as it's one day in seven, I'll address that when I get to the questions in our next presentation.

God's made an appointment with us because he loves us, every seventh day of the week. He would like us to be there that we might receive the holy blessing that he poured into that day.

Point number three, when does the Sabbath begin? We're going to move a little quicker through some of these other points. You can read about it in Leviticus 23:32, "From even unto even, you shall celebrate your Sabbath." Then you go to Mark 1:32, "And at even, when the sun did set. Jesus had been preaching and teaching, the people waited till sunset before they brought their sick unto him that he might heal them of their diseases and those that were possessed with devils." They waited until the sun went down.

The days begin and end at sundown. They did not use the modern clocks that we have. Or, what is it daylight savings time now they alter two in the morning? Is that what the time is that they do that now? Yes, in the Bible they didn't do things that way, the sun was the measurement of time. The Bible says it would be given for times and seasons.

Now, here's the big issue. What is a Christian? A Christian is a follower of Christ, you agree? Amen? What did Jesus do? Did he keep the Sabbath? That's what we want to ask. Mark 6:2, "And when the Sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue." Jesus had a practice of going to the synagogue every Sabbath day. You could also read about that in Luke 4:16 where we find, "So when he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was." What's a custom? Something you do once or twice or it's a way of life? "As his custom was he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read." Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he read the scriptures.

Furthermore, Christ says in Matthew 24:20. Speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem that was 40 years in the future, he warned his followers, "Pray that your flight may not be in the winter, or on the Sabbath." Now, if Jesus expected his followers to abandon and to disregard the Sabbath, or to change it, why would he tell them that? Some people said that, "Well, that's so they wouldn't be locked in the city of Jerusalem." He said those that'd be in Judea flee into the mountains. He didn't say Jerusalem. He was just telling them that you shouldn't have to flee on that sacred day, we should pray in advance about that.

Incidentally, there's going to be another time when God's people want to pray, that we don't have to flee and pray it is not in the winter or on the Sabbath day. Well, it's clear that Jesus kept the Sabbath. Matter of fact, the Bible says Jesus declares in the gospel of John, "I have kept my Father's commandments." Would that include the Sabbath day? So we know what his practice was.

What about the apostles, did the early Christians keep the Sabbath? A lot of scriptures we can look at. Let's start with Acts 17:1. Then he tells us, "Then they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews." I want to go to the next scripture here, "Then Paul as his custom was went into them and for three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the scriptures." Now, somebody is going to say, "Well, that's where you reach Jews. You go to the church on the Sabbath day and that's where you're going to find them."

It goes on to say the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them on Sunday the next day. Are you reading with me, is that what it says? No. It says the next Sabbath. If the disciples, and this is 12, 13 years after Christ descended to heaven, if they had now transferred it to the first day of the week, then why didn't the Gentiles say, "Well, we know you're Christians and you don't keep the Jewish Sabbath. We'd like to hear more about this so let's meet tomorrow." But no. They were doing the same day, they were keeping the same day the Jews kept, they said next week.

Then it tells us that the whole city on the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God. You can also find another example of where the disciples worshiped on the seventh day of the week, Acts 16:13, "And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there." Here they are resting by riverside, going to a place of prayer. They're witnessing, they're doing all these things that are in keeping with good Sabbath observants.

Who wrote the book of Acts that gives us all of these accounts? Who knows? Luke. Luke the Jew? Luke the what? The only Gentile writer in the New Testament. This would've been a really good place for Luke to say "the old Jewish Sabbath". He never says anything like that. He never says anything to lead us to believe that it was anything other than one of the Ten Commandments that was still been observed along with the other nine by Christ followers.

Did the early Christians keep the seventh day of Sabbath? Absolutely. Number six, big question, are the Ten Commandments still valid and binding for us today? Luke 16:17 and we can read there, Jesus said, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail." A tittle was the crossing of a T in the Jewish writing. It's easier for heaven and earth to pass away. One reason that might be true if you read in Revelation 11 it says, "I saw the temple of God open in heaven and I saw the ark of the covenant in heaven."

God has the original manuscript, you might say, of the Ten Commandments in heaven. Heaven has to pass away for it to be altered. God has the original protected, just like we've got our Constitution is behind glass and it's alarmed that the original might not be damaged or altered.

Furthermore, you can also go to Revelation 22:14. Where it tells us speaking of the Ten Commandments, "Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and might enter through the gates of the city." God pronounces a blessing on those who keep his Commandments. All the way from Genesis to Revelation, God never says that he does not expect us to keep the Ten Commandments. When you think about it, what more could God have done to emphasize the importance of the Ten Commandments than what he did?

He spoke it audibly with his own voice. Not through a prophet or a seer, through his own voice and the hearing of a whole nation. He wrote it with his own finger. He wrote it in stone. All these things were done to emphasize the eternal, unchanging, enduring nature of the Ten Commandments. It's a very dangerous thing for people to say that we don't need to keep the Ten Commandments anymore. Just use your brain and think about where that logic will lead. The Sabbath is in the very middle of that law, it's a difficult thing to separate it from the whole. It's a package that God made.

Some are saying, "Well, Doug you're making a big issue about one commandment." Next question, does one commandment really matter to God? Am I making a big issue about just one commandment? Maybe. But should I? For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in how many points? One point. He is guilty of how much? Guilty of all. Now I want to go to Matthew 5:19. These are the words of Jesus, "Whosoever, therefore, shall break" how many? "One of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." He goes on to say, "But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Some folks are thinking, "Doug you're being legalistic. You're talking about the law." Friends, I make no apologies because Jesus said that we shall do and teach, even the least of them, we will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. If you think this commandment is one of the least, that's just what the devil would like you to think. I still have God's approbation for teaching this.

Number eight, will we keep the Sabbath in eternity? I believe the Bible's clear. Isaiah 66:22,23, "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your descendants and your name remain. It will come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and one Sabbath to another, all flesh will come and worship before me." How many people? All flesh. You know what that means? All life will come. Not Jews and worship before the Lord.

Some have wondered, "Doug, it says from one new moon to another and one sabbath to another. So Doug are you saying that the new moon is an important issue?" Keep in mind that in the Bible the Sabbath is what divided the week. The new moon divided the month, they were on a lunar calendar. I've got this theory that the earth was somehow whacked out of quilter during the Flood.

Do you know the earth wobbles on its axis? I don't think God originally made it to wobble. That's one reason we have the radical seasons that we have, it's because the earth wobbles on its axis. I think that our planets and solar system and everything may have been affected by sin in the flood. I believe that in the new earth that we're going to be on a lunar calendar again and every fourth Sabbath, 28 days would be the month and it will be a high day because it will be a new month and it will be the Sabbath as well. You see what I'm saying? Bible saying from month to month and from week to week, every Sabbath, we will come to worship before the Lord. Now, we looked in the bible and we can see in the Garden of Eden, the Sabbath was made for Men and Adam and Eve, they kept it in the garden. We know the children of Israel and God's people throughout history kept the seventh day Sabbath, we've looked and we've seen and we have not looked at all the scriptures that Jesus and the apostles kept the seventh day Sabbath, the bible says we're going to keep the Sabbath in the new earth, does it make sense that perhaps God wants us to keep it now in the year 2001, in the 21st century? I believe so friends, I believe it's still as important today as it ever has been, it's one of the Ten Commandments and here the bible tells us that sin is the transgression of the law and the devil wants people to sin. Sin has the capacity of separating us from each other, separating us from ourselves and separating us from God.

Even something like the Sabbath commandment, you cannot break any of God's commandments really, there's always a penalty, you can't get away with breaking any of the commandments, there's always some kind of collateral damage. Whenever we neglect this day that God has blessed, we are missing out on the blessing that he has promised on that day. Everything a Christian does -- if a person who is an unbeliever lays in a hammock all day long on Saturday, do you think they're going to get the Sabbath blessing? No. Whenever a Christian gets something, he gets it through faith. When you look in the word of God and it says "I have blessed the seventh day"Then you think "I've been partying every Saturday, I don't remember getting any spiritual blessing on Saturday" That's because you did not claim it. You can get a blessing on the seventh day if you look in the word of God and you see that God has promised to bless that day, God has commanded me to remember that day, Lord I'm going to take you at your word and you know, you might taste and see the Lord is good. A lot of people are missing out.

Another important point that people forget is that the devil doesn't want us to pause, the devil does not want us to rest, the devil wants us to work ourselves to death until we’re the richest, most in debt bodies in the sanctuary -- in the cemetery I should say. You remember the story when the lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt? Moses came to the Pharaoh and he said "Bless us oh Lord, let my people go." The Pharaoh became indignant that Moses had been meddling with his army of slaves and he said "Behold the people of the land are many and you make them rest". From that verse, you know that word rest there? In Exodus 5:5? That word is Sabbath. He said, "You're making them keep Sabbath" Now, who does the Pharaoh represent in this story? He represents the devil. If the pharaoh represents the devil who keeps people enslaved, working, working, working and Moses comes along and makes them rest, who does Moses represent? He represents Jesus. The devil does not want us to rest, the devil is a cool taskmaster, he does not want us to rest the way or the day that Jesus has prescribed. He wants us to make bricks without straw if you will.

You see, time is the stuff that life is made of. Sometimes I think it's easier for people to give their money to God but they say "Don't touch my time", Matter of fact I find sometimes when I present the Sabbath truth, I meet with more resistance than if I could preach on the subject of time. Sometimes it's easier for a father to give their child a new bicycle than an hour of their time. People are very sensitive about their time. The devil wants to monopolize the time of the people in the world because the time is the stuff that life is made of. When God blessed and rested and sanctified a specific day that he set aside, it was not meant to be a burden, it was meant to be a blessing for you. God blessed the seventh day and the devil hates it and the Lord loves it because it's a time he wants to commune with us. He wants to know us. Ultimately, the bottom line is who do we love more? Are we going to be controlled by popular trends? Are we going to be controlled by popular religious beliefs? Are we going to be led by the word of God? Do we really love the lord? Do we want to love him? Jesus tells us there's a way for us to show who we love, he said "If you love me" do what? "Keep my commandments". You think the Lord wants us to Sabbath day so that we can't do our own thing on that day and he wants to say "I'm bigger than you are, I'm in charge and I'm telling you just sit there and ring your hands and don't do anything for 24 hours because I'm God and I want you to quickly believe I'm God". Is that what the Lord is saying? Or is Jesus commanding us to remember the Sabbath day because he knows that it has a sanctifying influence on us. He knows that we need it. I don't know what it's like in your home but in the Bachelor home, sometimes our kids are tired and they don't know they're tired. Have you ever had that experience? Matter of fact, when Nathan gets especially tired, he's climbing the walls, and Karen says he's doing that because he's exhausted and he refused to surrender. Some people are so busy, trying to get ahead and pay the bills and buy this and that and trying to achieve an accomplishment, make a name and climb the ladder, they don't have any time for God. God says rest, "Oh but Lord I'm busy, it's hard for me to rest." "Rest anyway, give me your time. Show me that you believe that you love me." You might be surprised when you take a breath and your rest, that it feels good. We managed to get rest Nathan upstairs and get him in his bed, you walk by his room in three minutes, he's snoring. "I don't want to go sleep, I don't want to go sleep, I don't want to go sleep" It's because we knew better than him, any of you have kids like that? Yes, parents know better and God knows that left to ourselves, we will work ourselves into the grave.

The lord tells us that he wants us to have rest, you know where that rest comes from? it comes from Jesus. "Come unto me all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest". There is a letter of the law. The letter of the law says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it Holy. Then there's the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law says come unto Jesus and I'll give you rest. Now, because you believe in the spirit of the law does not mean that you negate or neglect the letter. The letter of the law says if you look-- Thou shall not commit adultery, that's the letter of the law. The spirit of the law is do not look on the opposite sex and lust in your heart. If a person is keeping the spirit of the law, will they also keep the letter? Of course, they will. Some people think that once you keep the spirit of the law, its okay to break the Sabbath, they just come to Jesus. That's hypocritical thinking friends, if you really keep the spirit of the law, you'll want to keep the letter of the law. The letter is the very elementary foundation, the spirit is when you graduate, it's not just an action, it's an attitude. Sabbath, rest, pause is an attitude of knowing how much we need God, we need to worship him, give him physical rest, give him the communion and quality time. I thought this would be a very important subject for us to study because God wants you to have that rest for Jesus. Some of us have felt that wicked task-master like the Pharaoh, snapping his whip over our ears and we are working and we are stressed and we are tense and the rope is ready to break and Jesus says "Come to me and I'll give you rest". First you come to him just like you are, he gives you rest your soul, but he also wants you to have rest for your body and rest from your work of creation, your work of tending the garden, whatever it happens to be. We need to set those things aside and remember what the real priorities are.

Friend, I trust that you now better understand the purpose for God's holy day, the Sabbath. But if you're like most people, you heard a number of questions raised concerning keeping the seventh day Sabbath. Well, don't go away, in our next study, we're going to address and answer many of the popular questions, objections, even arguments that people bring up when they hear the Sabbath truth. At the conclusion of the second presentation, stay tuned, we are going to have a special closing thought and I'll tell you about a very helpful free offer.

Friends before we enter into this second aspect of this study, I thought it would be appropriate to set the stage by explaining a little bit about the difference between the new and the old covenants. First let's look at the old covenant, we find it first in Deuteronomy 4:13, at least this is the best definition "So he declared unto you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, that is the Ten commandments and he wrote them on two tables of stone" Now the old covenant was the Ten commandments written on stone and you remember after God spoke the ten commandments in Exodus 20, the people said "All the Lord has said, we will do", they promised that they will obey but you remember Moses went up the mountain and while he was getting the written transcript of the ten commandments in the tables of stone, the people became weary of waiting, they made a golden calf and in turn they ended up breaking all Ten of the commandments. They did not keep the covenant way back in the old testament. The new covenant is first found in the old testament. You can find not only in Jeremiah 31 but you also find it in the book of Hebrews in the new testament. Let's go there very quickly. Hebrews 8, notice the difference between the new and the old covenant. Here the writer says in verse 6 of chapter 8 of Hebrews "Now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, it is much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant" this is speaking of Jesus "which is established on better promises" notice here "for if the first covenant had been thoughtless, then no place would have been onslaught for a second. Because finding fault with them, and notice what's happening here. It says, this is based on better promises. The promise of the people. All the Lord has said we will do, they could not keep their promise. The Lord says, finding fault with them, there's no fault found with the law. The bible says that the law is just, holy and good.

The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. Finding fault with them, the bible says. He says, "Behold, the days are coming." says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. You should also notice there's no place in the bible when God says, he makes in covenant, with the gentiles, we are all saved by the covenant that God made with the spiritual children of Abraham.

"I'm making this new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers and the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. Because they did not continue in my covenant and I disregarded them, says the Lord. Here it is friends, verse 10, "For this is the covenant that I will make the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their mind and write them in their hearts. I will be their God and they shall shall be my people." Notice your friends, what the difference really is.

The old covenant was based on the faulty promise on the faulty people. The bible tells us the new covenant is made on better promises. The old covenant, the people said, all the Lord said, we will do. In the new covenant, God says, I will. In the old covenant, it was written on stone. In the new covenant, it's written on the heart. But please notice that in the new covenant, it's still the same law. He now writes it in the mind, he writes it in the heart.

We not only keep the letter, we keep the spirit of the law. You see, Jesus told us and that's in Chapter 5 or 17, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the profits. He did not come to destroy them but to fulfill them. That means to fill them up. He says, whoever therefore will break one of the least of these commandment and teach men so, until they spoken up as very least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever will do and teach them, will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matter of fact, the Apostle John tells us, that sin is the transgression of Gods law. As we enter into this study now, we hope that you have a better understanding that the new covenant is not a different law. It's made on different promises. The promises of God and it's written out in the hearts and the mind. Please have an open mind and an open heart as we continue our study in Sabbath Sunday and the new covenant.

This is a very subject. A lot of people are confused about the issue of the Sabbath and what day it is and why do we keep it on one day above another. If it's been changed from Saturday to Sunday, where did the change come in? Now I was doing some study on history. I always like to research these amazing facts. I don't know if you know. I've written four books but I only use two fingers when I type. Some of you have heard of the author Stephen King? I don't recommend his books. I watched him on the news one night, they showed him working. I was amazed, this man was a prolific writer. He was typing with two fingers. I felt so much better when I discovered that because that's how I type. If I get excited one day and I'm really awake I might use my pinky. I just throw it in there and feel really cool. Most of the time it's like this. At people on airplanes I'm embarrassed, I take my laptop. There's all these executives in there, [makes intense typing noise] and I'm [makes less intense typing noise]

[laughter]

It's a little embarrassing. You know what makes it even harder, is I never could understand why they arranged the letters the way they do on the keyboard. There's no rhyme or reason. I was doing some research and I found out why. There was a man in the 1860s he was a newspaper man named Christopher Sholes, he built the first typewriter. At first he arranged the letters logically, alphabetically on the keyboard. The problem was, they will press these levers and the little bars would slap the letters through the ribbon. You remember some of those old typewriters? Certain letters are used more often than others. The letters that were used frequently, if they were too close together would jam. The only solution was he tried to figured out which letters where the most commonly used letters and he would just spread them out. That's how we come up with what they called the QWERTY-- QWERKY it's what it should be, arrangement. THe sad this is, long after they developed electric typewriters and especially today with our computer keyboards, we are still locked into this concerted, this combuberated arrangement of letters because one's you get used to something that's really hard to change. I vote for change. I think I'd be able to learn the new method faster than most people. A number of people still don't understand why do we go to church on Sunday instead of the seventh day which would be Saturday? First I want to ask you an important question. Do you want to know the truth? You can talk to me, you want to know the truth? Jesus makes a promise, he say's in John 8:32, "And you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. Again in John 17:17 Jesus promises that we are sanctified by the truth, sanctify them by thy truth, where do we find the truth? Thy word is truth. Now, I might need go back to the beginning. The first reference to the Seventh day being holy. If you turn in your Bibles to Genesis 2:2,3 you can find it there. A little of this is going to be review. In case you weren't with us in our last presentation. "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. God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it, he had rest from all his work which God created and made." Well, it's very clear that seventh day is the day that God blessed, sanctified and rest to dawn. If that's clear say amen.

Audience: Amen.

Batchelor: What day of the week is the seventh day? Well if you look in the dictionary, the seventh day is Saturday. Seventh day of the week. Saturday is the Seventh day. The question is, if you open up a typical phone book and you look through a list of hundreds of churches, what day do most churches keep as their Sabbath day? It's the first day of the week. Why do most Christian go to church on the first day, when God only says he blessed the Seventh day? There is no record anywhere in the Bible where God says he had blessed the first day of the week. That's interesting to consider.

Nowhere anywhere in the Bible are we commanded to keep the first day holy. Nowhere is the first day called the Sabbath. Now when you start to study the Sabbath truth with people, nobody's comfortable with change. Who here will admit it's difficult to change. I'm still trying to change things I have been doing for years and it's tough. Especially when it comes to something that's so infringed a day of worship you may have had in your family for generations. People, the natural reaction is to argue. The most common arguments you're going to run into when you present the Sabbath truth to somebody are somewhere in this five categories. We're going to look at several today.

One, it was changed to Sunday. They say somewhere, someday the Sabbath will change from the seventh day to the first day. It's been deleted from the Ten Commandments. It doesn't matter what day is another common argument. Another one is we're no longer under the Old Covenant and that seventh day Sabbath was part of that. IT's a long standing tradition and we shouldn't try to change the world, God understands and held us accepted. Who can change the keyboard? Once everybody is trying, you just tried painting different numbers on your keyboard and see if it works. I'm going to begin going through some of these. We're going to look at history.

I want you to participate if I ask you a question. Popular objections to the Sabbath truth. Here's one of the most common. We're going to spend some time on these. The Sabbath has been changed to the first day of the week. How many of you have heard of this before? You heard this arguments, Sabbath has been changed. Does it makes sense to you if we look at every in the new testament-- we already know in the old testament, that God blessed the seventh day and Moses and God's people kept the seventh day Sabbath and Jesus and the apostles kept the seventh day Sabbath.

Somewhere there should be a reference in the new testament if there's been a change. If we look at every reference to the first day of the week in the new testament, that will help us find it. Does that makes sense? Most of them are simply historical references will move very quickly through some of these. Matthew 28:1, "Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn," When did Jesus rise? Easter what? Which comes after the Sabbath. What day is before Sunday? Saturday.

The seventh day of the week. That's what I was meant to say. The Sabbath it says, ended the first day came, this is Sunday morning. Now, do you know there are some people that tried to make a new doctrine out of this. They say, "Now, after the Sabbath was passed, this spiritually means that the Sabbath was over and done with. God is done with the Sabbath. Any of you have heard this argument before? There's a local man on the radio who does that.

The word there used for Sabbath is Sabbaton. That word, same word is used n Greek in the new testament. 68 times, it always means the same thing. There is no hidden mystical meaning, that the Sabbath's were done away with. I'll prove that as we look at some of the other references here. It's simply a historical statement, that when the Sabbath was over the first day began, early in the morning Jesus rose. IF that's clear say amen.

Audience: Amen.

Batchelor: It's historical record. The next reference you're going to find is in the Gospel of Mark 16:2 Very early on the morning on the first day of the week they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. Does this say the first day is now a new Sabbath Day? Does is say it's a new Holy day? No. Is it just a historical record of what happened and what day it happened. Are we told that we are not to keep it as a day of rest? No. This is a historical simple record.

Now, you can go to Mark 16:9. Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons. Same thing, it's just in the context of history how this happened.

Let's move along to Luke and we'll find another reference to the first day. It says here in Luke 24:1 -- And incidentally we're in reference four. We're halfway through. It tells us now, the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing spices which they had prepared. Is this saying that the first day is Sabbath? That Jesus had now commanded them to keep it Holy? No. Matter of fact, I'm going to back up one verse. You know what it says just before this verse? Listen to what Luke says in Chapter 23:54. 'That day was the preparation,' Friday, speaking of Jesus died, 'the Sabbath drew near. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.'

It's telling us that not only did Jesus rest from his work of saving human race on the Sabbath and He rose to continue His work, as a high priest, on the first day, it's saying that the disciples after following Jesus three and a half years, would not even finish the work of embowering his body because they knew how important it would be to Jesus. This is written by Luke and Gentile no less, 30 years later.

If the Sabbath had been changed, this would have been a wonderful opportunity for Luke to say, the old Jewish Sabbath, that thing when they were still keeping the seventh day. He says nothing like that. He states it as a understood fact they were keeping the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments of creation.

Let's go on now to the down split of John, and here's how he puts it. 'Now, in the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw the stone had been taken away from the tomb.' Does it tell us it's a new Sabbath? The day has changed but commanded to keep it Holy? No.

There is another reference people do often read to me. They say, "Well, Doug, we can prove the early Christians met on the first day of the week and so we've got this circumstantial evidence that they somehow kept it as a Holy day." Did they meet on the first day? Yes. Did they meet on the fifth day too? Yes. The Lord Supper is on Thursday. Isn't it a Holy day? They met on different days of the week. It tells us why they met. 'Then the same evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews.' Why had they assembled? To worship the Lord? Was it a new Sabbath day? It tells us why. Because they had the fear of the Jews. They thought they were going to be accused of stealing His body.

Now we've looked at the first six passages and it's telling simply there's a historical record that He rose the first day of the week. The next ones are not as easy and they're often seized upon by those who would like to say this is evidence that the disciples worshiped on the first day of the week. Please bring your Bible to Acts 20:7. I'm going to read through this very quickly. 'Now, on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread,' stop right there. Break bread, communion service, right? They've gathered on the first day, they break bread, this is a religious service. That's the argument people, that must have been Sunday.

But pay careful attention, you'll learn something new here if you haven't heard this before. 'Paul wanted to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.' Now, this is an evening meeting. It goes on to say here, 'There ere many lambs in the upper room, it's dark.' When do the days begin and end biblically? At sundown. We learn that last presentation. If they're meeting on the first day and it's dark, when is it? It's what we would call Saturday night. Matter of fact, in the English Bible, it simply says, 'On Saturday night, in our assembly for the breaking of bread.' Someone will say, "Wait, they're breaking bread. That means it was a community service."

The Bible tells us the first time to break bread was Thursday. Does that make it a new Holy day? Matter of fact, Acts Chapter 2 says they broke bread from house to house daily. Breaking bread sometimes means eating. It doesn't always mean, oh look, a communion service. Remember the day that Jesus rose? He went down the road to Emmaus with the two disciples, and He broke bread. That's the term they used for eating together.

Furthermore, the main reason they're telling this story is because a young man named Eutychus fell off the window, he died and Paul resurrected him. That's the reason the story is here. It's not telling us it's a new Sabbath day. Beyond that, it tells us that Paul was going to make a journey the next day, and so he's simply talking to them every span before he lives. 'Then we went ahead to the ship and sailed to Assos, there intending to take Paul on board.' It goes on to say, 'For so he had given orders, intending himself to go on foot.'

He's beginning a long journey. If Sunday was a new Lord's day, would he pick that day to begin his journey across the country? Probably not. You really can't use Acts 20:7 to say this first day gathering was the inaugurating of a new Sabbath day.

Now, the next one, and this is our last reference to the first day of the week in the Bible, is in 1 Corinthians 16:1. It says, 'Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the churches of Galatia, you may so you must also do. On the first day of the week, let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.' This is Verse 1 and 2.

Now, Paul is getting ready to take an offering down to the church of Jerusalem. There is a famine.He says, "I'm in a hurry." There is no corporate collection. You lay aside by you in store. It is saying the very opposite. It is not a church gathering, it is not an offering being taken, they get their books in order on the first day of the week. They've already given their offerings the day before, which is Sabbath. He says, when you get your books in order, set something extra aside for the saints in Jerusalem because I don't have time to take a special collection. Is this telling us that it's a new Sabbath Day? That they are to keep it Holy, and that God had changed the Ten Commandments?

That's another question that comes up. Why would God change the seventh day to the first? When God established the Sabbath, was there sin in the world? No, it was perfect. Was there anything wrong with it? No, it was part of God's perfect plan just like the other things that had been made and everything was good.

Well, there is someone else who is going to raise this objection. Doesn't the Bible teach that Sunday is the Lord's day? This comes from a reference in Revelation 1:10, where John says, 'I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a great voice as a trumpet.' A number of people assume the Lord's day, that's what everyone calls Sunday the Lord's day. There is not one shred of evidence anywhere in the Bible that the Bible writers call Sunday the Lord's day. Matter of fact, the evidence is the opposite.

John, when he had this vision, being a faithful Bible believer and obedient to the Lord, they had mines on the isle of Patmos that probably made him work with the other slaves for the Roman empire, he was resting on the day and God gave him the vision on Sabbath day. Which day is the Lord's day according to the Bible, if you let the Bible be its own interpreter? If we go to Mark 2:27,28, 'And He said to them, the Sabbath was made for man. When God first made man in the beginning, the Sabbath was made to be a blessing for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the son of man is also Lord of the Sabbath.' What's the Lord's day? The Sabbath Day.

We could also go, Exodus 20:10, in the Ten Commandments. 'The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Jews.' Is that what it says? It's the Sabbath of the Lord. When day is the Lord's day? If that's not enough, go with me to Isiah 58:13, 'If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my Holy day.' Which day is God's Holy day? The Sabbath is the Lord's day.

Maybe I should pause at this point and talk just a moment about, what do we do on the Sabbath? How do we keep the Sabbath day? The Bible says it's a day for rest. It's a day for physical rest. We learn that. The Bible tells us, and you remember in the last presentation, the Sabbath is a day for us to convene. It's a Holy congregation where we assemble to worship God. The Bible tells us Jesus says it's a day to do good. He would heal people on the Sabbath day, and he taught people and he visited people. It's a day for doing good. It's a good day to spend time with your family. You want to make sure you have that time for God.

The Bible says it's not a day to be buying and selling, according to Nehemiah. If you're going to prepare your food, Moses says bake what you're going to bake and boil what you're going to boil. The idea is get everything out of the way you can possibly get out of the way. I fueled my car with gas yesterday, so I can go 300 miles today if I need to. I don't plan on it, but just in case, I get it all out of the way so I've got that sacred time for God that's not interrupted with the cares of life. That's how we keep it Holy. We chewed it in a different way.

Some of us will say, another common argument, Sabbath was part of the old covenant. Have you head this one before? We don't keep the the seventh day Sabbath, that's part of the old Jewish covenant.

Some of the most popular scriptures for the use for this, Colossians Chapter 2. Got your Bibles? Please turn because I'm going to have you especially notice a few verses here. In Colossians Chapter 2, and I'm going to start with Verse 13. It says here, 'And you being dead in your trespasses, and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive with Him having forgiven our earlier trespasses.' Alive together with Him. Having wiped out the handwriting, don't miss the word 'handwriting' of ordinances, don't forget 'ordinances', that was against us, which was contrary to us. Don't miss 'against us'. Handwriting, Ordinances, Against us. And took it out of the way, nailing it, catch that, to the cross.

Maybe we can jump down to Verse 16. 'Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or in regard to a festival or new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow.'Don't let anyone judge you regarding Sabbaths, plural, which are a shadow.

Now, is everyone here aware that there are a number of annual Sabbath days that become completely separate and distinct from the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments? How many of you know that?If you look at Leviticus 23, you'll find that whole list. Those were called the Annual Jewish Sabbaths. The Sabbath of the Ten Commandments, I want to ask you, did it come before sin or after? That's perfect. The annual Sabbaths, before sin or after? The Sabbath of the Ten Commandments, written on stone or paper? The Ceremonial Sabbaths, written on stone or paper? Parchment, [unintelligible 01:11:38], something like that. The Sabbath of the Ten Commandments was written by the finger of God or scribe? Finger of God. The Ceremonial Sabbath was written by a scribe. Ten Commandments were placed where? In the ark of the covenant. The ceremonial Sabbath in a packet in the side of the ark.

Now, notice when you look here in 2 Chronicles 3:6, you can tell that the Ceremonial Sabbaths are what Paul is talking about when he says don't let anyone judge you. Fiorst of all, let me just ask you. How many of you have heard somebody use Colossians 2 to say we don't need to keep the Sabbath, don't judge me. They use this scripture that's talking about the annual Jewish Sabbath days to try to delete one of the Ten Commandments. It's the old covenant, they say. But it's talking about the ceremonial law.

Notice here, 'That they will take heed to do all that I've commanded them according to the whole law.' God is speaking. All that I have commanded them. Notice, 'And the statutes and ordinances by the hand of Moses.' Can you see why God says that the hand of Moses was responsible for the ordinances. It's his handwriting, doesn't it? God says, "Those are my commandments and the statutes against and ordinances."

Furthermore, you can read on where were the Ten Commandments placed. 'Take this book of the law, the ordinances, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.' You know what Paul just says here in Colossians? That these ceremonial laws and Sabbaths which were contrary to us, against us -- it's not the Ten Commandments, it's the ceremonial law he's speaking of, not the seventh say Sabbath.

We could also go on here to Hebrews 10:1. 'For the law of sacrifices', and read the whole passage here, 'having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of these things can never with these same sacrifices to wash away sin.' The shadows were the ceremonial laws and sacrifices, not the Ten Commandments. The Bible tells us further more that these laws only entered the cross. Can you nail stone to anything? There are people trying to chisel away one of the Ten Commandments. It seems strange to me that someone would try to get rid of and delete the one commandment that begins with the word 'Remember'. They say that's the one we are supposed to forget.

You go on here and we know that there is a distinction between the moral law and the ceremonial law. They are two laws spoken of in the Bible. In Romans 14 when Paul uses that scripture and he says, 'One man esteems one day above another, and another man 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.'

Is Paul here saying, if you feel like keeping the Ten Commandments, that's okay, it's up to you? As long as you're convinced, if you don't, that's up to you. Is Paul saying that about the Seventh Day Sabbath or is he talking about the annual holidays that the Jews had? He's talking about the annual feast. I do that with Christmas and Easter. When we come in, do we have to celebrate Christmas? No. I don't get onto people if they feel [unintelligible 01:14:41] that they'd like to celebrate this day or Easter. But there's no Bible command. If you're going to do it, do unto the Lord. Don't do it unto Santa and elves. It's the same principle. He's not talking about the Sabbath commandments here. He's talking about the ceremonial holy days in the annual feast.

There are two distinct laws that were given. You can find that right in Deuteronomy 4:13, 14. In the covenant of the Lord. 'So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.' Very clear,Ten Commandments. You keep reading, it goes on to say, 'And the Lord commanded me, Moses says, at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to posses.

Ten commandments that God declared, wrote on a stone, the covenant, and statutes and judgments. The ceremonial Sabbaths were part of those statutes and ordinances that were nailed to the cross. Furthermore, you read here at 2 Kings 21, 'Only if they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law My servant Moses commanded them.' Do you see? Say amen if you can see those two separate laws that are being mentioned here. Does that make sense?Now, if you don't believe me, I hope you believe Dr. Billy Graham.

Here's how he puts it. He has an article where he answers Bible questions in the paper and this is a quote from one that he did in the Dallas News. Here's the question. Some religious people I know tel me that the Ten Commandments are part of the law and do not apply to us today. They say that Christians are free from the law. Is that right?

People who say, "I know what happen to the church." If everyone said, "My seventh day is Thursday, what's yours?" Kind of be difficult to get together for corporate worship, wouldn't it? Do numbers matter to God? When the Lord told Naaman, you wash seven times and you'll receive a miraculous blessing, when he obeyed and did what God told him, he was healed. Did Naaman have his leprosy washed away after the first time?

Second, third, fourth, fifth, six no, he received the blessing when he did it the number God told him to do. When God said to Joshua, you match around the city six times, one time per day, on the seventh day, match around it seven times and then you blow the trumpets and then you'll get the victory, the walls didn't fall after the first time, the walls fell after they went seven times on the seventh day. Amen.

Incidentally, some people said, "Doug, does that mean they were matching around the city of Jericho on the Sabbath day? No, they matched six days and they stopped, they rested. The seventh day of matching, they went around it seven times which would have been the first day of the week, that's when they got the victory. Numbers do matter to God.

Argument number 392; the calendars have been changed. Have you heard this one before? You can't tell what day is the seventh day because the calendars have been changed. I actually went and pasted this month up just so you can see how this works. People get confused. There are three distinct ways we measure time that do not touch each other. You can change them without affecting the other, the clock, the days of the week, and the months or the calendar. Some people get confused because they see the days of the week listed there in the calendar. You can see Saturday is the seventh day of the week in a normal calendar, and they think calendar has been changed by the weekdays are up on the calendar, they've been changed too. But that's not how it works.

Watch, I'm going to get ready now to change the calendar. Here we go. This is the incorrect calendar, now it's correct. I just changed the calendar, but did I change the days of the week? They don't move. It's true we're under the Gregorian calendar now, and Pope Gregory the 13th in 1582, Thursday the 5th, was followed by Friday the 15th. They added 10 days, they changed the calendar. But Thursday was still followed by Friday, it doesn't affect the days of the week, we still know what the days of the week are.

Someone wrote a letter to the US Naval Observatory asking about this, and in a response, the director there said there has been no change in the continuity of the weekly cycle since long before the Christian era. They can study astronomy and tell you that, there's so much history that backs that up.

Next argument; Jesus broke the Sabbath, so it must not be important. Some of you are shocked to hear this. There is a place in the Bible I want you to know about where he was accused of breaking the Sabbath. You can find that in the Gospel of John Chapter 5, and it says, 'Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, Jesus, because not only had he broken the Sabbath, but he said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God." Have you seen this before?

I remember a pastor saying, "Doug, Jesus broke the Sabbath." I said, "Whoa, watch where you're going there, because the Bible tells us that Christ was sinless and sin is a transgression of God's law, and that would be a very dangerous thing to conclude." You find some answers in Luke 11:15, they also accused Jesus of being demon-possessed. How many believe that Jesus was demon-possessed? It says here, 'Some of them said he casts out demons by Beelzebub the ruler of demons.' In John 10:20, "And many of them said he has a demon and he is mad, why do you listen to him?' Was Jesus demon possessed, was he casting out Devils?

Furthermore, they went on to say he's a glutton and a wine-bibber. Was Jesus a glutton and a wine-bibber? It's simply recording that the Jews accused him of breaking their Sabbath because he healed a person. Where in the Ten Commandments does it say you can't heal a person on the Sabbath? That wasn't part of the law. That was something they had attached to it. The Bible tells us, Jesus said he did keep the Father's Commandments, "I've kept my Father's Commandments and abide in his love", John 15:10. If that's clear, say amen.

Elbow the person next to you in case I'm losing them. I want to make sure everybody hears this. Some people say, well, we don't keep the Sabbath because the Sabbath commandment is in the Old Testament but it's nvever repeated in the New Testament. Have you heard that before? That's the next argument; we don't keep the Sabbath because you can't find it in the New Testament. The fact is there is one commandment, one of the Ten Commandments is not repeated in the New Testament, you know which one it is? Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Show that to me in the New Testament.

How many here believe it's okay to break that commandment? Well, obviously God wouldn't want us to break that commandment. It's so clear. Then, why would someone think that just because you don't see the fourth commandment in the New Testament, you could break it, and you do. Matter of fact, of all the Ten Commandments, you know which one is referred to more than any other in the New Testament? It's the Sabbath. There was a lot of struggle over and never did Jesus say it's done away with, never did Jesus say I've changed it to another day. Matter of fact, if you look at the evidence, and that's what I want you to do, weigh the evidence. In the New Testament, or in the Bible actually, there are 171 references to the Sabbath, and Sunday, there are 0 references that tell us that it's a Holy day, the first day of the week. We've looked at every one of them. All these references in the New Testament tell us that it is still Holy. So, count the evidence up and it's clear.

Now we're going to look at the history. I know what you're thinking, "All right Doug, you're dealing with some of the arguments, but the fact is that people are going to church on Sunday, there might be something that God did that we don't know about." How come so many Christians -- And I want to tell you right now, I believe the greatest part of Christ's true followers are in the Fellowship of churches that go to church on the first day of the week. How many of you agree with that? Yes, we're not saying that only those that go to church on the seventh day are going to Heaven because there's going to be a lot of people in Heaven that went to church on the wrong day. There will be people in Heaven that had too many wives, right? But do you think God endorses polygamy? God winks at our times of ignorance but now that we see, He commands people to repent, and we're trying to help you see, not because the Sabbath truth is a burden, but it's supposed to be a blessing.

Let's take a look at some of the history, the history mystery, how did it seem to change from Sabbath to Sunday? Keep in mind in Daniel Chapter 7, there's a prophecy that this beast power would arise that would think to change times and laws, this religious political power. Now, looking quickly at some of the history, you'll find in the first century, the Christians there, this is a quote from the ecclesiastical history, 'Then the spiritual seed of Abraham fled to Pella on the other side of Jordan, where they found a safe place of refuge and conserve their master and keep his Sabbath." All of the early Christians met on the seventh day of the week. They met on, what we would today call, Saturday the Sabbath. Things slowly began to change, as things sometimes do, and compromises were made.

Here's another quote from history, and the references are there if you want to jot these down. Those of you who are watching the video, obviously they're on the screen. 'The primitive Christians did keep the Sabbath of the Jews. Therefore, the Christians for a long time together did keep their convocations upon the Sabbath in which some portions of the law were read, and this continued till the time of the Laodicean council." Now, the council of Laodicea was over 300 years after Christ. Don't forget the Council of Laodicea.

What was going on is, all of the early Christians were worshiping on the seventh day of the week, the same day the Jews kept. The Jewish religion began to be very unpopular, it was declared religio illicity, and Christians were being persecuted right along with Jews because it was a forbidden religion, because they met the same day. Gradually, some of the Christians began to want to be more politically correct that they wanted have to always be under the gun and run for their lives, they started to compromise. They tried to find anything they might find in common with the pagans in Rome so they could make friends.

During this time, Sun worship of course was a very popular thing. This was the age of compromise, and the pagans day of the Sun, called the first day of the week or Sunday, gradually began to replace the Bible Sabbath. Here's some of the history from a Bible encyclopedia, 'Sabbath, a Hebrew word signifying rest. Sunday was the name given by the heathens to the first day of the week because it was the day on which they worshiped the Sun.' The pagans worshiped the Sun on the first day. It was a special day for them.

We could go on here, if you read then in the Catholic world March 1994, 'The Sun was a foremost God with heathendom. There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the Sun making it a fit emblem of Jesus." I don't agree with this, this is what the Catholic world magazine said, 'A fit emblem of Jesus, the Son of Justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said keep that old pagan name, it will remain consecrated and sanctified.' Gradually, the church tried to make something special out of Sunday and attach it to Jesus somehow that it might be more -- Christianity could be more attractive to the pagans. This is in history, none of these quotes are from my church.

You could also read the history of the Eastern Church. It says, "The retention of the old pagan name of Dies Solis for Sunday, in a great measure owing to the union of Pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his pagan subjects and Christians alike as the venerable day of the Sun.'

Now, right in my house, I have Colliers encyclopedia. I just pulled my encyclopedia off the shelf and this is what it says if you look in page 212. Go to your encyclopedia and look up Constantine the Great, it says, 'Constantine, in 313 AD, Constantine published the Edict of Milan granting freedom of religion in the Empire and establishing,' don't miss that word, it doesn't say allowing, 'establishing Sunday as a day of worship.' When did that happen? 300 years after Christ. This is 313, and here's an actual quote of what that decree said, 'On the venerable day of the Sun, S-U-N, not S-O-N, it has nothing to do with Jesus. It was a day they worshiped the Sun. Let the magistrates and the people residing in the cities rest. They began to declare the first day a day of rest. It was established by Constantine and later baptized by the church, you might say. Let all the workshops be closed.

Somebody sent me this picture, I thought it was kind of interesting the way it's worded. It's just on the street somewhere, 'Sun worship 9 AM.'

[laughter]

Not so used to seeing it that way, but that's where it comes from. Sunday worship originates with Sun worship.

Let's go back to history and we'll find out what was going on. You'll notice between 335 and 375, the Christians in Persia under the 40-year persecution, under Shepherd the 11th, the popular complaint against the Christians was they despised our Sun God, they have divine services on Saturday, they desecrate the sacred earth by burying their dead in it, they used to cremate like in India. You can go now to the actual decree at the Council of Laodicea. By 365 AD, the church ratified the decision of Constantine, and then by 538, it was universally adopted. It took 200 years. A lot of Christians fled into the mountains. Here's what it says, on Saturday, this is canon 16, the gospels and other portions of the scripture shall be read aloud.

Canon 29, Christians shall not judaize and be idle on Saturday, not only were they now holding for Sunday, they were threatening to persecute those who kept the seventh day, but will work on that day. Why would the Council of Laodicea have to say this if no Christians were observing the seventh day? It's because they were, that they had to put it into a law. But the Lord's Day, they began to call it the first day the Lord's Day, they shall especially honor and as being Christian shall if possible, if you have to mow your lawn or go watch a football game, that's okay. But if possible, do not work on that day. You notice people who keep Sunday don't keep it the same way Sabbath keepers keep Sabbath.

Now, you'll find out gradually the church in Rome, the headquarters of the church moved to Rome they began to universally embrace us and the Roman Catholic Church, which of course is the biggest Christian Church, freely admit that they're responsible for the change and they say that's proof of their authority. These are some quotes from their references.

The American Catholic in 1883, 'Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory and ought logically to keep Saturday with the Jews.' In other words, it’s the same if you're going to go by the Bible, Protestants really ought to be keeping the seventh day. Let's go on here. In the doctrinal catechism of Stephen Keenan, I've got a copy of this book. How do you prove that the church has power to institute festivals? Answer: had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her, not all of them. She could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week, a change for which there is no scriptural authority. Writing the Catholic catechism, they freely admit there's no Bible reason. And I'm not here to condemn people for what they believe, I'm just saying I believe I should go by the Bible, how about you? If you go by the Bible and not the decrees of man, there's really only one day.

Let's go on here. I've got a couple more. I think we're going to make it on time. You might read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and you'll not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, this is Cardinal Gibbons in faith of our Fathers. If you go by the Bible, that's the only day. I like this quote here, “The authority of the church therefore could not be bound to the authority of the scriptures, because the church had changed the Sabbath into Sunday.” It doesn't say Jesus, doesn’t say the Bible, the Apostles, no. It says the church did it, and it was hundreds of years after Christ, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority. The issue is, who are we going to obey? The commandments of men or the commandments of God? This is a big issue in the last days.

Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the church ever did happened in the first century. The Holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday not from any directions noted in the scriptures, but from the church's sense of its own power. People that think the Scriptures should be the sole authority should logically become seventh-day Adventist and keep Saturday Holy. I really appreciate this Catholic magazine that published that, St. Catherines 1995. Furthermore, I think it's interesting that in the Catholic Record, you read Sunday is our mark of authority. The church is above the Bible, I don't believe that. I believe the church is to be subject to the Bible. The Bible is the foundation, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.

Now, we've got a couple of final arguments. You understand the history of how it slowly changed? No command of Christ or the Apostles or the Lord, but it was done as a politically correct maneuver to try and make the church more popular. But you know what happened? Instead of the church reaching the world, paganism reached the church, and we're still not beyond that danger.

Maybe we should worship God every day. Have you heard that one before? I love it when people come up to me and they look very sanctimonious and pious and they say, "Well, I know Doug that you believe in the seventh-day Sabbath, but I worship God everyday." Does the Bible tell us that that's what we're supposed to do? Yes, we should worship God everyday. But is the Sabbath commandment telling us to worship God everyday only? I don't believe you will even find the word worship there. It says the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your cattle or your stranger who is within your gates. If a person is resting seven days a week ,they're not Holy, they're lazy, right? There's nothing pious about that. I hope you aren't fooled by that argument.

Another one, we should just keep one day in seven, doesn't matter what day. Well, we've already talked a little bit about that. It does make a difference what day because God said the seventh day is the one to keep.

Furthermore, keeping the Sabbath is legalism and represents salvation by works. I like it when people come to me and they say, “Doug, you're putting this legalism on people bondage telling people they've got to keep the Sabbath.” And I say, “I'm telling them to rest, you're telling them not to rest, you're telling them to work on God's Holy day and you're calling me salvation by works. So no, I believe in rest, you're the one who is responsible for works." It's not legalism, it's the very opposite of that. Sabbath-keeping represents not performing works, trusting in Jesus and his works, Amen. So that's a clever diversionary tactic, but it's not a good argument. You've probably heard it before. Jesus said, "Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy-laden and I'll give you rest." Coming to Christ gives the spiritual rest, but beyond that, there's also the physical rest.

Hebrews also tells us, 4:5, 'If they will enter into my rest.' The Lord wants us to have that peace and that rest. Then of course others will say, "Well Doug, why are you trying to turn a train around on its track right standing still?" The whole world is acknowledging the first day. Don't you think God is ready to just let it slide and say why don't those who are being obnoxious and holding up for the Ten Commandments, why don't they go along with everybody else?

Follow the popular tradition. Don't think that you're so special, just go with the flow, you're swimming upstream. What did Jesus say about that? How many of you believe what Jesus says, that he's the final word? The Bible tells us, and this was our scripture reading today, Mark 7:7, 8, 'In vain, they worship me,' well, some people are worshiping God in vain. They claim they're being Holy, 'but they're worshiping him teaching the doctrines in the commandments of men. They lay aside the commandment of God and hold the tradition of men.' They're going by man-made traditions in place of the commandment of God, and how does the Lord do that? He says in vain they're worshiping me.

Well, the bottom line is, what's going to be your guide? Popular tradition or the word of God? The laws of men or the law of God? The Bible says you are the servant to the one who you obey. Are we going to obey Caesars Pope's and prelates, or are we going to obey Jesus? You cannot serve two masters, amen. Jesus tells us, speaking of those that will ultimately be in the kingdom, "Here is the patience of the saints, here are those that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."

There are two outstanding characteristics among God's people in the last days, they obey God's commandments, and they have faith in the Lord. Now, we are not saved by keeping God's law, but we prove that we do have faith by trusting the Lord enough to obey Him. God will never ask you to do something without giving you the power to obey and to perform. How many of you believe that?

There are hundreds of other little arguments, these are the primary ones I could talk about. But the main thing I want you to know, friends, is that God has not changed. The Bible says, 'I am the Lord, I change not.' The Sabbath has not changed. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He wants you to know these things. He's sharing these things with you because He wants you to have that rest. If you really do love the Lord, if you really do believe, we show our faith by obeying Him.

It's one thing for a person to say I love you Lord. It's another thing to say I love you enough to do your will. It's not going to be everyone who says Lord, Lord, that will be in the kingdom, but those who do the will of my Father in Heaven. The Lord God, including the Sabbath, is His will. He wants you to come to Him and have rest.

Hopefully today in our study, there is a rapid presentation but I try to quickly cover as much territory as I could. To try to take away some of the wrinkles that clatter people clarity about what truth is. It's important that we are not always being beaten around by every wind of doctrine. I think especially in the last days when we need to be willing to take a stand, even if it means we go through the furnace, we'd rather die than disobey God. We need to be rooted in the truth. We need to know, not be apologetic or ashamed about believing that it's good to keep the commandments of God. I think it's a shame, sometimes I meet Bible Christians who are apologizing that they believe in the Ten Commandments. The law is just and unHoly and good, and it's not something to be ashamed of.

We need to get to the place where we are rooted into the word, because a storm is coming, and those trees that don't have their roots down deep and wrapped around the rock of ages are going to get blown over, amen. I am doing everything I can, friends, to help us to know why we believe what we believe and to give you the tools and the ammunition that we need to share our faith. The Bible says we ought to be ready to give an answer to others that ask us. Probably, the most important thing is the Lord wants us to have that peace and rest. Sabbath is not meant to be a burden, it's meant to be a blessing, and it comes when you say, "Lord, you promised to bless this day. I am going to trust you and obey you", and then he activates that blessing in your life.

Would you like to say to the Lord. Now, Lord, I want that blessing, I want that rest. Is that your prayer?

Father in Heaven, we thank you for this time we've had together this morning as we've gathered together at this Holy day and this Holy place to hear your Holy word. Lord I pray the things that we've learned will take lieu in our hearts. I pray the Holy Spirit will be available to bring them to our remembrance as opportunity arises to show these principles. And most important Lord, I pray that it will not simply be a philosophy on the outside, but a deep and abiding faith and believe on the inside that will help to guide our boats to that haven of rest. Lord, please bless each of this people. I pray you give us the grace and courage to follow Jesus and not the crowd, to know the commandments of God and not the traditions of man, and to have Him seated on the throne of our hearts. Thank you for your presence Lord this day, and we ask that we may continue to abide in [unintelligible 00:01:13] in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, friends, I trust that you've both been instructed and inspired form our study on the Sabbath truth. But I also know that many of you may have a number of lingering questions that still need answering. If you'd like some additional resources, we'd like to offer you a free trilogy of books that I think will enhance your study. The first is called Death Watch in Siberia. This book is a family's personal experience in discovering the side of truth on how God blessed them for honoring His Holy day.

We also have a very popular book that answers a number of questions about the origin of Sunday. It's written by Joe Cruise called, Is Sunday Really Sacred?

The third book is also written by Joe Cruise, and it's called Why God Said Remember.

All three of these resources are free. All you need to do is contact us. Write to Amazing Facts at P.O. Box 909 Roseville, California 95678, and say that you would like the trilogy of books that come with the Sabbath videotape.

Friends, I realized that a number of you may have still be struggling with a number of questions. Some of you may have embraced the Sabbath truth even during this presentation and you would like to know where do you go to worship with other Sabbath keepers. Please log on to the Amazing Facts website. You will find additional study materials as well as we'll have a special map that you can go to, to discover Sabbath-keeping churches in your area. The address is amazingfacts.org, that's W-W-W.amazingfacts.org. I'll be praying for you, friends, that you are willing to be not only hearer's, but doers of God's word.

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Narrator: A website, whose roots date back to the beginning of time, www.sabbathtruth.com, is the definitive resource for Bible light on the Lord's day. Clear Bible answers for every question you've ever had about the Sabbath. Seven key topic headings guide you through the purpose of the Sabbath, which day is the Lord's day, the Sabbath in prophecy, questions about the Sabbath, how to keep it Holy, Sabbath history, and many Sabbath resources.

Visit www.sabbathtruth.com today and share your new found treasure with a friend.

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Coming up next, part two, Laboring to Rest, with Pastor Doug Batchelor.