Night Owl 9/Night Owl CD-ROM (NOPV9) (Night Owl Publisher) (1993).ISO/046a/remember.zip/REMEMBER.TXT

Text File | 1993-05-30 | 33KB | 589 lines

Why God Said Remember


Copyright by Joe Crews.
  All rights reserved.



Numerous surveys and questionnaires have confirmed that the most
popular form of modern skepticism is to deny the creation story.
Seventy-two percent of ministers interviewed expressed varying
degrees of doubt that God actually spoke the world into
existence according to the biblical account.  This fundamental
disbelief has led to the rejection of other foundational
doctrines of Christendom such as the virgin birth and the
atonement.
It is interesting to note that God apparently anticipated a lot
of controversy over the Genesis record of fiat creation.  His
claims of manufacturing all the staggering mass of matter by
merely commanding it to exist--well, there would certainly be
doubters and disbelievers of such an account.  And even those
who read about it and believed it would soon forget the
miraculous fact under the confusing influence of a million false
gods who would arise.
So God needed to do something unusual to preserve the knowledge
of His mighty act of creation.  That power to speak heaven and
earth into existence would distinguish Him from all the
counterfeit gods and their deceptive claims.  What could He do
that would constantly point mankind back to the focal week of
creation when He forever established His divine authority?

Creation--The Mark
of God's Sovereignty

God chose to memorialize that convincing display of creative
power by setting aside the seventh day of creation week as a
holy day of rest and remembering.  It would constitute a
tremendous safeguard of God's sovereignty--a mark of His right
to rule as the only true God.  It would, at the same time, stand
as a devastating debunking of every god who had not created the
heavens and earth.
The writings of Old Testament prophets are saturated with
reminders of God's peculiar powers of creation.  David wrote,
"For all the gods of the nations are idols:  but the Lord made
the heavens."  Psalm 96:5.  Jeremiah expressed it:  "But the
Lord is the true God, he is the living God. ... The gods that
have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish.
... He hath made the earth by his power."  Jeremiah 10:10-12.
Did God Himself demonstrate an extreme urgency in keeping the
truth of creation vividly before the eyes of the world?  Yes.
To such a degree that He wrote into the heart of His great moral
law the binding obligation of every living soul to keep the
Sabbath holy, and thus, to acknowledge His divine authority.
Within those eternal principles forming the foundation of His
government and reflecting His own perfect character, God wrote
these words:  "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six
days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:  But the seventh
day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God:  in it thou shalt not do
any work. ... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that in them is ... wherefore the Lord blessed
the sabbath day, and hallowed it."  Exodus 20:8-12.
What an act to highlight the omnipotent work of creation!  Once
a week, as the earth rotated on its axis, the Sabbath reminder
would travel around the earth reaching every man, woman, and
child with the message of an instant creation.  Why did God say
remember?  Because to forget the Sabbath is to forget the
Creator also.

Conversion--Creative
Power at Work

Parallel to the accounts of a physical creation we find the
record of God's power to recreate the human heart.  Evidently,
the two processes stem from the same omnipotent source.  It
requires just as much power to effect conversion or recreation
as to call something into existence by creation.  Said the
apostle, "Put on the new man, which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness."  Ephesians 4:24.  Since the
new birth is the most basic identifying mark of the justified
believer, it is no wonder that the Bible writers constantly
remind us of the creative power which distinguishes the true God
from all counterfeits.
Pointing beyond the mere fact of a physical creation, God spoke
these words also, "Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be
a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the
Lord that sanctify them."  Ezekiel 20:12.
Please note that a sanctified Sabbath was to be the mark of a
sanctified people.  The word, "sanctify," meaning to set aside
for a holy use (a day which spoke of God's creative power),
served also as a reminder that God could set people apart for a
holy use through regeneration or recreation.
In the light of these facts, it is easy to understand why the
devil has waged a continuing, desperate battle against the
seventh-day Sabbath.  For almost six millenniums he has worked
through pride of tradition, misinformation and religious bigotry
to destroy the sanctity of God's special sign of authority--the
Sabbath.
As a mark of God's right to rule, the Sabbath challenged Satan's
boast that he would take God's place.  Said the adversary, "I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God. ... I will be like
the most High."  Isaiah 14:13, 14.  Satan actually wanted to be
worshiped.  To accomplish this, he had to nullify God's claim as
the rightful ruler.  God's authority rested on His claim to be
the Creator, and the Sabbath was the mark of that authority.  By
destroying the Sabbath, Satan would prepare the way to set up a
counterfeit government based on counterfeit claims of authority
symbolized by a counterfeit day of worship.

The Battle Over Authority

It is fascinating to look back over the ages and see the
outworking of the great controversy between Christ and Satan.
The contest has always focused upon the issue of authority.
The strategy of the evil one has been a two-pronged attack on
God's claim to be the Creator.  First, by the theory of
evolution with its humanistic doctrine of natural selection.
Second, by an age-long effort to destroy the observance of the
seventh-day Sabbath, the mark of creative power.
We can only say in passing that each of these hellish attempts
to discredit God's authority has produced a bitter success
beyond all expectation.  Millions have been turned into
religious skeptics and agnostics as a result of Darwin's
doctrine of organic evolution.  Denying any fall of man which
would necessitate a Saviour from sin, evolution struck at the
plan of redemption as well as the fact of creation.
In a similar vein, Satan's attacks on the Sabbath have led
millions to disobey the one commandment in the Decalogue which
God had made the specific test of obedience to the entire law.
A successful plan to subvert the loyalty of millions who were
devoted to the true God required a masterpiece of satanic
strategy.  It would take time.  It would involve centuries of
deceptive mind-bending.  There would be no dramatic turn from
serving God to serving Satan.  The secret would be to win
obedience through religious subterfuge.  Satan understood the
principle of Romans 6:16 long before Paul ever penned the words,
"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey,
his servants ye are to whom ye obey?"
Obedience is the highest form of allegiance and worship.  If
Satan could create an issue that would cause people to disobey
God, he had an even chance of winning their obedience to his
cause.  The decisive contest would take place over the law of
God.  It constituted the foundation of God's government.  How
could Satan destroy confidence in the law and make people obey
him instead?  And which commandment should he attack?
Obviously, the one which pointed to God's creative power and His
right to rule.  As the identifying sign of the true God, the
Sabbath has always been an object of satanic hate.  God had
chosen the Sabbath as a test of loyalty to His law in the Old
Testament:  "That I may prove them," said the Lord, "whether
they will walk in my law, or no."  Exodus 16:4.

The Test Point
of the Law

Since God had made the Sabbath the test point of all the Ten
Commandments, Satan determined to make it the giant issue of the
ages.  By destroying the Sabbath, Satan would be prepared to
launch his super-plan to claim obedience to a counterfeit day of
worship.  Manipulating the weakness of a compromised
Christianity which had slowly acceded to pagan influences, Satan
set up his masterpiece--a worldwide church-state--which would
ruthlessly enforce compliance with his counterfeit system of
worship.
For over a thousand years, beginning with the so-called
conversion of the pagan Emperor Constantine, the dark history of
apostasy unfolded.  Almost the first act of the newly-professed
Christian emperor was to make a law against Sabbath-keeping and
to institute other laws requiring rest on the first day of the
week, a wild solar holiday dedicated to pagan sun worship.
We will not dwell, at present, upon the well-documented history
of the papal church councils which enforced the observance of
the pagan Sunday on pain of death.  The facts are well-known to
those who have been willing to search the records with an open
mind.  During the fourth and fifth centuries, the first day of
the week was exalted by papal decree to displace the true
Sabbath of the Bible.
Unfortunately, prejudices and false information have led
thousands of Christians to close their eyes to the overwhelming
historical evidences of this substitution.  The roots of their
prejudice are not hard to identify.  Satan has worked too long
on his opposition system to allow it to be rejected easily.
Through the ages he has perfected a series of subtle false
arguments to bolster obedience to his counterfeit day of
worship.  He still hates the Sabbath which identifies the true
God.
Only as we expose these attacks on the seventh-day Sabbath will
we be able to understand why millions continue to observe the
first day of the week, a day for which there is not a single
supporting Bible text. No one disagrees with the meaning of
God's handwritten law, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord ... in it thou shalt not do any work."  Yet millions do not
obey it.  No one can refute the overwhelming evidence of
Sunday's pagan origin, yet millions keep it instead of the
plainly commanded Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.  Why?  I
repeat, the reason is rooted in the clever arguments of Satan
which have created a climate of prejudice against the holy
Sabbath of the Lord.  We shall now examine some of the major
fallacies of those arguments.

The Sabbath Was Made
Only for the Jews

This falsehood has gained such strength that multitudes of
Christians refer to it as the "Jewish Sabbath."  But nowhere do
we find such an expression in the Bible.  It is called "the
sabbath of the Lord," but never "the sabbath of the Jews."
Exodus 20:10.  Luke was a Gentile writer of the New Testament
and often made reference to things which were peculiarly Jewish.
He spoke of the "nation of the Jews," "the people of the Jews,"
"the land of the Jews," and the "synagogue of the Jews."  Acts
10:22; 12:11; 10:39; 14:1.  But please note that Luke never
referred to the "sabbath of the Jews," although he mentioned the
Sabbath repeatedly.
Christ clearly taught that "the sabbath was made for man."  Mark
2:27.  The fact is that Adam was the only man in existence at
the time God made the Sabbath.  There were no Jews in the world
for at least 2,000 years after creation.  It could never have
been made for them.  Jesus used the term "man" in the generic
sense, referring to mankind.  The same word is used in
connection with the institution of marriage which was also
introduced at creation.  Woman was made for man just as the
Sabbath was made for man.  Certainly no one believes that
marriage was made only for the Jews.
The fact is that two beautiful, original institutions were set
up by God Himself before sin ever came into the world--marriage
and the Sabbath.  Both were made for man, both received the
special blessing of the Creator and both continue to be just as
holy now as when they were sanctified in the Garden of Eden.
 It is also interesting to note that Jesus was the One who made
the Sabbath in the first week of time.  There was a reason for
His claim to be Lord of the Sabbath day (Mark 2:28).  If He is
the Lord of the Sabbath day, then the Sabbath must be the Lord's
day.  John had a vision on "the Lord's day," according to
Revelation 1:10.  That day had to be the Sabbath.  It is the
only day so designated and claimed by God in the Bible.  In
writing the Ten Commandments, God called it "the sabbath of the
Lord."  Exodus 20:10.  In Isaiah He is quoted as saying, "The
sabbath, my holy day."
But we must not overlook the fact that this God who created the
world and made the Sabbath was Jesus Christ Himself.  John
wrote:  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with
God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not any
thing made that was made. ... And the Word was made flesh, and
dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth."  John
1:1-3, 14.
Paul clearly identified Jesus as the Creator, "... his dear Son:
In whom we have redemption through his blood. ... For by him
were all things created."  Colossians 1:13-16.
For Christians to separate Jesus from the Sabbath is a tragic
mistake.  For He is the Author, the Maker, the Sanctifier, and
the Architect of the Sabbath.  To discount the blessing which He
placed on that day is to deny His authority.
This argument has led many to believe that the Sabbath existed
only for a limited period of time following creation.  But is
this a fact?  Actually, the Sabbath could never be just a type
or shadow of anything, for the simple reason that it was made
before sin entered the human family.  Certain shadows and
typical observances were instituted as a result of sin and
pointed forward to the deliverance from sin.  Such were the
sacrifices employed to symbolize the death of Jesus, the Lamb of
God.  There would have been no animal sacrifices had there been
no sin.  These offerings were abolished when Christ died on the
cross, because the types had met their fulfillment (Matthew
27:51).  But no shadow existed before sin entered this world;
therefore, the Sabbath could not be included in the ceremonial
law of types and shadows.
Paul referred to the temporary system of ordinances in
Colossians 2:14-16 as being "against us" and "contrary to us."
He tied it to the meat offerings, drink offerings, and yearly
festivals of the law that was "blotted out."  It is true he
referred to sabbaths also in the text, but take careful note
that he called them "sabbath days which are a shadow of things
to come."  Were some sabbath days blotted out at the cross?
Yes, there were at least four yearly sabbaths which came on
certain set days of the month, and they were nailed to the
cross.  They were shadows and required specified meat and drink
offerings.  All of these annual sabbaths are described in
Leviticus 23:24-36, and then summarized in verses 37 and 38:
"These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be
holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the
Lord, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and
drink offerings, every thing upon his day:  beside the sabbaths
of the Lord."
The Scripture plainly differentiates between the annual, shadowy
sabbaths and the weekly "sabbaths of the Lord."  The ceremonial
sabbaths were blotted out at the cross; they had been added as a
consequence of sin.  But the Sabbath of the Ten-Commandment law
had been hallowed before sin was introduced and was later
incorporated into the great moral law written by the finger of
God.  It was eternal in its very nature.
Just Keep Any
Day in the Seven

By this argument Satan prepared the world to accept a substitute
in place of the Sabbath God had commanded.  Upon the tables of
stone God wrote the great, unchanging law of the ages.  Every
word was serious and meaningful.  Not one line was ambiguous or
mysterious.  Sinners and Christians, educated and uneducated,
have no problem understanding the simple, clear words of the Ten
Commandments.  God meant what He said and He said what He meant.
No one has tried to void that law as too complicated to
comprehend.
Most of the ten begin with the same words:  "Thou shalt not,"
but right in the heart of the law we find the fourth commandment
which is introduced with the word, "Remember."  Why is this one
different?  Because God was commanding them to call something to
memory which already existed but had been forgotten.  Genesis
describes the origin of the Sabbath in these words, "Thus the
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
And on the seventh day God ended 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."  Genesis 2:1-3.
Which day did God bless and sanctify?  The seventh day.  How was
it to be kept holy?  By resting.  Could any of the other six be
kept holy?  No.  Why?  Because God commanded not to rest those
days but to work.  Does God's blessing make a difference?  Of
course.  This is why parents pray for God to bless their
children.  They believe it makes a difference.  The seventh day
is different from all the other six days, because it has God's
blessing.
Some more questions:  Why did God bless the day?  Because He had
created the world in six days.  It was the birthday of the
world, a memorial of a mighty act.  Can the Sabbath memorial be
changed?  Never.  Because it points backward to an accomplished
fact.  July 4 is Independence Day.  Can it be changed?  No.
Because the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4,
1776.  Your birthday cannot be changed, either.  It is a
memorial of your birth, which happened on a set day.  History
would have to run through again to change your birthday, to
change Independence Day, or to change the Sabbath day.  We can
call another day Independence Day, and we can call another day
the Sabbath, but that does not make it so.
Did God ever give man the privilege of choosing his own day of
rest?  He did not.  In fact, God confirmed in the Bible that the
Sabbath was settled and sealed by His own divine selection and
should not be tampered with.  Read Exodus 16 concerning the
giving of manna.  For 40 years God worked three miracles every
week to show Israel which day was holy.  (1) No manna fell on
the seventh day.  (2) They could not keep it overnight without
spoilage, but (3) when they kept it over the Sabbath, it
remained sweet and fresh.
But some Israelites had the same idea as many modern Christians.
They felt that any day in seven would be all right to keep holy:
"And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on
the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.  And the
Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments
and my laws?"  Exodus 16:27, 28.
Get the picture?  These people thought another day could be kept
just as well as the seventh day.  Perhaps they were planning to
observe the first day of the week, or some other day which was
more convenient.  What happened?  God met them and accused them
of breaking His law by going forth to work on the seventh day.
Would God say the same thing to those who break the Sabbath
today?  Yes.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever--He
changes not.  God made it very clear that, regardless of their
feelings, those who go forth to work on the Sabbath are guilty
of breaking His law.  James explains that it is a sin to break
even one of the Ten Commandments:   "For whosoever shall keep
the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not
kill.  Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou
art become a transgressor of the law."  James 2:10, 11.

We Can't Locate
the True Seventh Day

This is a fallacy that has comforted many in their disobedience
of the fourth commandment.  It just is not true.  Here are four
positive proofs which identify the true Sabbath today:

1.  According to the Scriptures, Christ died on Friday and rose
on Sunday, the first day of the week.  Practically all churches
acknowledge this fact by observing Easter Sunday and Good
Friday.  Here is the Bible evidence:  "This man went unto
Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.  And he took it down, and
wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in
stone,  wherein never man before was laid.  And that day was the
preparation, and the sabbath drew on."  Luke 23:52-54.
Here is proof that Jesus died the day before the Sabbath.  It
was called "the preparation day" because it was the time to get
ready for the Sabbath.  Let us read the next verses:  "And the
women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after,
and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.  And they
returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the
sabbath day according to the commandment."  Verses 55, 56.
Please notice that the women rested over the Sabbath "according
to the commandment."  The commandment says, "The seventh day is
the Sabbath," so we know they were observing Saturday.  But the
very next verse says, "Now upon the first day of the week, very
early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the
spices which they had prepared. ... And they found the stone
rolled away from the sepulchre."  Luke 24:1, 2.
How clearly these three consecutive days are described for us.
He died Friday, the preparation day, commonly called Good
Friday.  He rested in the tomb on the seventh day, Sabbath,
"according to the commandment."  That was Saturday.  Then on
Sunday, the first day of the week, Easter Sunday to many, Jesus
arose from the grave.
Anyone who can locate Good Friday or Easter Sunday will have
absolutely no difficulty finding the true Sabbath.

2.  The calendar has not been changed so as to confuse the days
of the week.  We can be positive that our seventh day is the
same day Jesus observed when He was here.  Pope Gregory XIII did
make a calendar change in 1582, but it did not interfere with
the weekly cycle.  Our present Gregorian calendar was named
after him when he made that small change in 1582.
What did Pope Gregory do to the calendar?  Before 1582 the
Julian calendar had been in effect, instituted by Julius Ceasar
about 46 B.C. and named after him.  But the Julian calendar had
calculated the length of the year as 365 1/4 days, and the year
is actually eleven minutes less than 365 1/4 days.  Those eleven
minutes accumulated, and by 1582 the numbering of the calendar
was ten days out of harmony with the solar system.  Gregory
simply dropped those ten days out of the numbering of the
calendar.  It was Thursday, October 4, 1582, and the next day,
Friday, should have been October 5.  But Gregory made it October
15 instead, dropping exactly ten days to bring the calendar back
into harmony with the heavenly bodies.
Were the days of the week confused?  No.  Friday still followed
Thursday, and Saturday still followed Friday.  The same seventh
day remained, and the weekly cycle was not disturbed in the
least.  When we keep the seventh day on Saturday, we are
observing the same day Jesus kept, and He did it every week
according to Luke 4:16.

3.  The third evidence for the true Sabbath is the most
conclusive of all.  The Jewish people have been observing the
seventh day from the time of Abraham, and they still keep it
today.  Here is a whole nation--millions of individuals--who
have been counting off time meticulously, week after week,
calendar or no calendar, for thousands of years.  Could they
have lost track?  Impossible.  The only way they could have lost
a day would have been for the entire nation to have slept over
an extra 24 hours and for no one ever to tell them about it
afterwards.
There has been no change or loss of the Sabbath since God made
it in Genesis.  The origin of the week is found in the creation
story.  There is no scientific or astronomical reason for
measuring time in cycles of seven days.  It is an arbitrary
arrangement of God and has been miraculously preserved for one
reason--because the holy Sabbath day points to the creative
power of the only true God.  It is a sign of His sovereignty
over the world and over human life; a sign of creation and
redemption.
Is this not the reason God will preserve Sabbathkeeping
throughout eternity?  We read in Isaiah 66:22, 23:  "For as the
new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain
before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name
remain.  And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to
another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come
to worship before me, saith the Lord."
The Sabbath is so precious to God that He will have His people
observe it throughout all time to come in the beautiful new
earth.  If it is so precious to Him, should it not be precious
to us?  If we are going to keep it then, should we not keep it
now?
In an age of false gods, of atheistic evolution, and traditions
of men, the world needs the Sabbath more than ever as a test of
our loyalty to the great Creator-God and a sign of our
sanctification through His power.

4.  Proof number four lies in the fact that over one hundred
languages of the earth use the word "Sabbath" for Saturday.  For
example, the Spanish word for Saturday is "S bado," meaning
Sabbath.  What does this prove?  It proves that when those
hundred languages originated in the long, long ago, Saturday was
recognized as the Sabbath day and was incorporated into the very
name of the day.


The Sabbath Was Only a
Memorial of Deliverance
Out of Egypt

This strange idea is drawn from a single text in the Old
Testament and is distorted to contradict many clear statements
about the true origin of the Sabbath.  The text is found in
Deuteronomy 5:14, 15:  "But the seventh day is the sabbath of
the Lord thy God:  in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor
thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle,
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant
and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.  And remember that
thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy
God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a
stretched out arm:  therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to
keep the sabbath day."
Some people draw from this text that God gave the Sabbath as a
memorial of the Exodus from Egypt.  But the Genesis story of the
making of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3) and the wording of the
fourth commandment by God Himself (Exodus 20:11) reveals the
Sabbath as a memorial of creation.
The key to understanding these two verses rests in the word
"servant."  God said, "Remember that thou wast a servant in the
land of Egypt."  And in the sentence before this one He reminds
them "that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well
as thou."  In other words, their experience in Egypt as servants
would remind them to deal justly with their servants by giving
them Sabbath rest.
In similar vein God had commanded, "And if a stranger sojourn
with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him ... for ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt."  Leviticus 19:33, 34.
It was not unusual for God to hark back to the Egyptian
deliverance as an incentive to obey other commandments.  In
Deuteronomy 24:17, 18, God said, "Thou shalt not pervert the
judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a
widow's raiment to pledge. ... Thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and
the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence:  therefore I command thee
to do this thing."
Neither the command to be just nor to keep the Sabbath was given
to memorialize the Exodus, but God told them that His goodness
in bringing them out of captivity constituted a strong
additional reason for their dealing kindly with their servants
on the Sabbath and treating justly the strangers and widows.
In the same way, God spoke to them in Leviticus 11:45, "For I am
the Lord that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt. ... ye
shall therefore be holy."  Surely no one would insist that
holiness did not exist before the Exodus, or that it would be
ever afterwards limited only to the Jews, to memorialize their
deliverance.

Keep Sunday in Honor
of the Resurrection

It is true that Jesus rose on the first day of the week, but
nowhere is there the slightest intimation in the Bible for
anyone to keep that day holy.  The basis for Sabbathkeeping is
the direct handwritten command of God.
Many wonderful events occurred on certain days of the week, but
we have no command to keep them holy.  Jesus died for our sins
on Friday.  That is probably the most significant event in all
of recorded history.  It marks the moment my death sentence was
commuted and my salvation assured.  But not one Bible text hints
that we should observe this day of such great significance.
It was a dramatic moment when Jesus rose from the grave on that
Sunday morning, but there is not a scintilla of biblical
evidence that we should observe it in honor of the resurrection.
Not one instance of Sunday observance has been found in the
recorded Scriptures.
There is, of course, a memorial of the resurrection commanded in
the Bible, but it is not Sundaykeeping.  Paul wrote:  "Therefore
we are buried with him by baptism into death:  that like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life."  Romans 6:4.
Baptism is the memorial of Christ's death, burial and
resurrection.  Those who believe that Sunday observance honors
His resurrection cite the upper room meeting of the disciples on
the same day He arose from the grave.  To them that gathering
was to celebrate His resurrection.  But when we read the Bible
record of the event, we discover that the circumstances were
quite different.  Luke tells us that, even though the disciples
were confronted with the eyewitness story of Mary Magdalene,
they "believed not."  "After that he appeared in another form
unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.
And they went and told it unto the residue:  neither believed
they them.  Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at
meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of
heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after
he was risen."  Mark 16:12-14.
Obviously, none of those upper room disciples believed that He
was raised, so they could not have been joyously celebrating the
resurrection.  John explains their reason for being together in
these words:  "The doors were shut where the disciples were
assembled for fear of the Jews."  John 20:19.
Thus, we have examined the major arguments used against the
observance of God's holy Sabbath day.  Not one of the objections
provides a trace of evidence that God ever changed His mind
about the Sabbath.  When He wrote the word "remember" into the
fourth commandment, it was in reference to the same seventh day
that appears on our wall calendar.  Neither men nor demons can
diminish the validity of that eternal moral law.
May God grant each one of us the courage to honor the Sabbath
commandment as heaven's special test of our love and loyalty.
As we have discovered, when Jesus returns, we will keep that
same Sabbath with Him, ages without end.  Even so, come, Lord
Jesus.

If you found this topic interesting, we would love to hear from
you. We have bible studies as well as video and audio tape
libraries. Send for our free catalog of study materials.
    Amazing Facts
    P.O. Box 680
    Frederick, MD 21701
Please let us know that you found this sermon on a bbs.