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Series Code: PU
Program Code: PU000008S
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00:01 What do the mysterious images of Daniel and Revelation mean? When
00:07 will the Anti-Christ appear and make his final move? How can I 00:12 be ready for the final events of earth's history? You'll be 00:16 amazed and encouraged by what the Bible reveals. Join us as 00:20 Pastor Brian McMahon leads out in Prophecy Unsealed. 00:30 Welcome to another study in our Prophecy Unsealed series. Our 00:34 topic is entitled God's Test of Loyalty. Let's start here in the 00:40 scriptures: Acts 17 and verse 10 says: And the brethren 00:43 immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who 00:46 coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These 00:50 were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they 00:53 received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched 00:56 the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore 01:00 many of them believed; also of honorable women which were 01:03 Greeks, and of men, not a few. And why were they called noble? 01:08 Because they were open to study. They were open to see whether 01:11 those things were so. And how did they do it? Did they go to 01:15 their pastor or their priest or rabbi and ask them for their 01:18 opinion? Did they go to their neighbor and see what they had 01:21 to say. No, they didn't, did they It says they searched the 01:25 scriptures for themselves. They didn't take other opinions. They 01:30 wanted to know what did the scripture really have to say. 01:33 It wasn't with the opinion that some have or the method that 01:35 some have today of predetermining what they want to 01:38 believe and they try to read into the Bible what they want it 01:42 to say. Not the Bereans. In Revelation chapter 13 and verse 01:46 3 we read these words: And I saw one of his heads as it were 01:49 wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and...how much 01:52 of the world friends...all the world wondered after the beast. 01:56 Now notice this is not something to take lightly. Here we see 01:59 down at the end of time, there is a majority of people that are 02:03 going to be following a false way. We haven't identified the 02:06 beast in the seminar yet, but we can see right away that there 02:09 is going to be a mass movement of error before Jesus comes back 02:12 Here is another verse just next to it in verse 8: And all that 02:16 dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not 02:19 written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the 02:22 foundation of the world. Now this is startling isn't it folks 02:25 Here we're seeing that the world will worship and follow after a 02:29 beast power. They're captivated by it. They're mesmerized by it. 02:33 It says in Revelation 18 that they're drunken by the wine of 02:37 this power which means it's false teachings. If we study the 02:40 Bible and we see in the Bible that the vast majority of people 02:45 are going a false way it shouldn't surprise us should it? 02:48 It shouldn't startle us because we've already been told in 02:51 prophecy that this is going to happen before Jesus comes back. 02:54 So God is going to open our mind in such a marvelous way that the 02:59 world can have a witness of truth before Jesus comes. We see 03:02 this in Daniel chapter 12 and verse 4. It says: But thou, O 03:06 Daniel shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time 03:10 of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be 03:14 increased. So before Jesus comes it says knowledge in his word 03:18 is going to increase. God is going to shed a spotlight of 03:24 scripture upon this generation such as he has never done before 03:28 And before Jesus comes back God has a message for this world. 03:31 Just as Noah had a message for the world before the coming of 03:34 the flood. Just as John the Baptist had a message before the 03:38 first coming of Jesus, so the message of Revelation 14 goes to 03:42 all the world before the second coming of Jesus. God is 03:46 preparing a world, preparing the society for the great event 03:49 called the second coming. And it says, and notice now, we're to 03:55 worship him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the 03:57 fountains of waters. So Revelation 14 verse 7 is a call 04:00 toward true worship. Revelation 14 verse 9 is a warning against 04:05 false worship. So there's two worships talked about in this 04:08 book of the Bible that we call Revelation. In the last days of 04:12 earth's history every human being is going to find themself 04:14 on one of those two sides. We're going to be worshipping God as 04:17 the way he asks us to or going to be worshipping a false way 04:21 and being on a beast's side. And the central issue is loyalty 04:25 friends. The central issue is faithfulness. The central issue 04:30 is obedience to God. Let's now think about it. We're called to 04:36 worship God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and the fountains 04:39 of waters. In other words, we're called to worship God as the 04:42 Creator. We live in an age of terrible heresy when it comes 04:47 to how we arrive at the foundations of this world. 04:51 In an age when they think we're nothing more than a highly 04:55 developed biological organism God is calling us back to our 05:00 roots here. We are the result of the Creator's handy work, Amen? 05:03 Have you ever asked yourself the question why do we worship God 05:07 any way. What is the basis of worship? There's an answer to 05:10 that in scripture found in Revelation chapter 4 and verse 05:15 11. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and 05:18 power: for...that means because ...thou hast...done what... 05:23 created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were 05:27 created. So the very basis of worship is that God created us. 05:32 God is certainly wiser than that He's going to give us a symbol 05:36 something to remember the fact that he is the Creator and we 05:41 are his handiwork. And what happens when people forget that 05:44 there's a Creator? What happens when people forget that there's 05:47 a higher authority than ourselves? When that happens 05:50 then they get into well if there's no higher authority than 05:53 myself, then I'll just do whatever I want to do and then 05:56 you get crime and you get violence and you get basically a 06:00 breakdown of society. In John 4 and verse 24, it says: God is a 06:04 Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and 06:10 in...what? Truth. 06:11 You see the devil has introduced into the Christian churches of 06:15 today the idea that how you worship really doesn't matter 06:20 to God. And that idea has circulated so much that people 06:23 have believed it. Well, deep in the heart of God's law God left 06:29 us something very special there as a symbol of his creative 06:32 authority. The devil is deceiving mankind over the 06:37 central issue of worship, friend Let's go take a look at what 06:41 they had to say in the book of Exodus. Now before we go there 06:44 I just want you to remember what we've covered the last couple 06:47 nights. In the last couple nights of the seminar we 06:50 studied about God's law. We've studied about how law and grace 06:54 go together. We studied that we're not saved by the law but 06:57 we're saved by God's marvelous grace through faith is a gift of 06:59 God, not of works lest any man should boast. Amen. But Jesus 07:03 balanced that by saying if you love me what...Keep my 07:08 commandments. So obedience is the response of faith. Jesus did 07:12 not die so we can continue being disobedient. Jesus died because 07:16 we were disobedient and he desired through his tremendous 07:20 gift of salvation to bring us back into an obedient 07:23 relationship with him. And the law of God reveals to us how 07:27 loving respond to their Creator and how they respond to their 07:32 fellowman. The popular theology that's circulating today is this 07:35 They'll say that Jesus did everything for our salvation 07:39 and therefore there's nothing left to do. Now again that's one 07:43 of those half-truths I was telling you about. It is true 07:46 that Jesus did everything necessary for our salvation, 07:48 that's true, but it is also true that there is something that we 07:52 must do about that which Jesus provided. Because if there was 07:57 no response on behalf of human beings then I suppose that would 07:59 mean everyone would go to heaven and we know that's not the truth 08:01 So yes there is something that we must do. Let's go take a look 08:06 Exodus chapter 20 starting in verse 8. What does it say here? 08:09 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt 08:14 thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the 08:17 Sabbath of the Lord thy God: In it thou shalt not do any work, 08:20 thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor 08:23 thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, not thy stranger that is within 08:26 thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 08:29 sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: 08:32 wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. 08:36 God wrote his will on stone for human beings. Not on sand to be 08:42 washed away, not on parchment paper to burn up or fade. He 08:46 wrote it on stone so it would never fade throughout all 08:48 of the ages. When God wrote it down there did he call them the 08:54 10 suggestions? No, he didn't call them the 10 what? 08:57 commandments. So we're looking tonight at one of those 09:01 immovable commandments that God wrote down. And he wrote 09:06 Remember but the world forgot. Why don't we go to the Bible and 09:09 why don't we see exactly? what the Bible teaches on this 09:13 subject. Is that okay with you? And yet it starts with the word 09:16 remember. Now perhaps you've heard people say this. They'll 09:22 say, Oh but the Sabbath, that's that old Jewish commandment 09:24 isn't it? Now we read the fourth commandment together. Notice it 09:28 didn't say the Sabbath of the Jew. It says the Sabbath of the 09:32 who? It said the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. Right? And so when 09:36 God made man there on the sixth day of creation after he had 09:40 finished that sixth day, how many human beings were alive on 09:43 planet earth? Two right? And what were their names? Adam and 09:47 Eve. Were they Jews? No they were not Jews. There were no 09:50 Jews for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of 09:55 years after Adam and Eve. God made the Sabbath for man and 10:00 that's the generic term for all of mankind. And God commanded 10:04 us to keep that day holy. Some people think that God created 10:08 the Sabbath in the time of Moses but the Sabbath friends goes all 10:11 the way back to Genesis, right there in the Garden of Eden. 10:14 In fact, if we go back to Genesis let's do that right now. Let's 10:17 see what it has to say. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 1. It says: 10:22 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host 10:24 of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had 10:28 made, and he rested on the seventh day. He rested on the 10:30 what day? Seventh day from all his work which he had made. And 10:34 it says: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it 10:41 So notice, God was busy creating on day one it says he separated 10:46 the light from the darkness. On day two he made the firmament. 10:50 From the water above he separated from the water beneath 10:52 On day three he made the grass and the trees. On day four it's 10:56 the sun, the moon, the stars. On day five he made the birds of 11:00 the air and the creatures of the sea. On day six he made the 11:02 land animals and he made human kind and then on day seven he 11:08 didn't create no more. He rested and gave us an example of what 11:13 we should do. God did not ask us to do anything except He first 11:18 gave us an example by doing it himself. So God rested on that 11:22 day. He blessed that day and he sanctified the seventh day and 11:27 the Bible is clear friends that the only two human beings that 11:31 were there when God did all of that were Adam and Eve. Right? 11:36 And so the seventh day or the Sabbath is not a Jewish day. 11:39 It's God's day. It's the day that God gave for all of 11:44 mankind. But this argument comes up over and over and over. Did 11:48 he just make it for the Israelites. Let's let the New 11:50 Testament tell us. Mark chapter 2 and verse 27. It says: The 11:53 Sabbath was made for...here it is folks...M-A-N. What does that 12:00 spell. Man. That's a funny way to spell Jew, isn't it? No it 12:04 doesn't say that. It was made for man. That's the generic term 12:08 for all of mankind irrespective of sex or nationality. Nothing 12:13 here about any Jew. Only Adam and Eve were there at that time. 12:15 It is never called the Jewish Sabbath. You hear that from 12:19 preachers sometimes but the Bible never says it. The reason 12:22 God gave the Sabbath folks was to be a blessing for all of 12:26 mankind. God desired both Jews and Gentiles, everybody else 12:32 that has lived in this world to have a break from their labor 12:36 and to rest. Is the commandment that says Thou shalt not kill 12:41 Jewish in nature? No. Is the one that says thou shalt not take 12:47 the name of the Lord thy God in vain, is that only for the Jews 12:49 to carry out. Of course not. None of the other nine are only 12:53 for the Jews. Why would the fourth one be only for the Jews? 12:55 You can search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and back 13:00 again. You will never find the phrase Sabbath of the Jews. In 13:03 the commandment itself it says: In it thou shalt not do any work 13:06 thou nor thy son, not thy daughter, thy manservant nor 13:08 thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, get this now, nor thy who? 13:12 stranger that is within thy gates. So right in the 13:15 commandment itself, it tells us it's for the non-Jew as well as 13:18 for the Jew. And so God says I want you to remember the 13:21 Sabbath: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 13:24 sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: 13:27 wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. 13:29 Now what is God quoting from here? He's quoting from Genesis 13:33 chapter 2 which we just read, right? Do you know that this is 13:36 what distinguishes God from all of the false things that are 13:38 called God. No people who call themself God can create anything 13:42 can they? Nothing made of metal or stone or rock or any other 13:48 kind of material can create anything. God has always been 13:52 dishonored friends by people worshipping falsely, calling 13:58 things God that are not God. God here is saying if you want 14:01 for all time to remember that he is the creator then keep the 14:07 Sabbath day holy. Let's go take a look at Exodus 31 verse 17. 14:10 Speaking of the Sabbath it says it's a sign between me and the 14:14 children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven 14:17 and earth. This is why the devil friends works so hard to get 14:22 people to disregard the Sabbath to neglect it or reject it or 14:28 spiritualize it away so somehow it doesn't have any meaning in 14:32 their life. And that's why many Christians today are accepting 14:35 Darwinian evolution as a valid explanation for how we got here. 14:39 Folks, that idea goes directly against the Bible. Throughout 14:44 the Old Testament the Sabbath was a sign between God and his 14:48 people. Let's take a look at it here in Ezekiel 20 and verse 12. 14:50 It says: Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a what, 14:55 a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the 14:58 Lord that sanctify them. So that Sabbath was to be throughout 15:03 time that special symbol of a connection between God and his 15:07 people. We can come apart, spend some time with him and we need 15:11 this friends. The world is running on stress today. US News 15:16 and World Report: Working harder than ever. Stress is worldwide 15:21 wherever you go. People are having temporal problems and 15:25 they're getting caught up on all kinds of things. They get 15:29 heart attacks and nervous break downs and road rage and all 15:32 of these kind of things. The devil has this world under the 15:38 hammer seven days a week. Right And God is saying you need a day 15:41 apart to recoup and regroup and to get to know that there is a 15:46 Creator God that wants to have a relationship with us. Don't 15:48 you need a day every week when you're not worried about paying 15:50 the bills, and just acknowledge that we have a wonderful Creator 15:55 and he wants to know us. And the devil knew that the perfect 16:01 seventh day Sabbath honored the perfect God. So what did he do? 16:04 He said, if God has a day that honors him then I've got to put 16:08 that day under attack. And folks is it not true that everything 16:13 God gives us to be a blessing the devil somehow tries to mess 16:17 it up? Jesus said: If you love me, keep my commandments. Now 16:20 notice Jesus put obedience in the context of a relationship. 16:24 And by the way that relationship is going to determine how you 16:31 look at this subject tonight. Because have you ever been to 16:33 someone's house that you really don't have a great relationship 16:35 with and you're kind of looking at your watch. How much time do 16:38 we have left before I have a right to go. The problem is you 16:41 don't really...you're not really close to that person. But when 16:43 you are close to them we say boy time flies. We always had a 16:47 great time. Time went by and you hardly even noticed it. How you 16:53 love the Lord is to determine how much time you want to spend 16:55 with the Lord. And as God has said, I want to spend time with 16:57 you every single week and we don't love the Lord then we 17:01 probably wouldn't look upon the Sabbath as a tremendous blessing 17:03 But when you do love God it is not a legalistic thing to want 17:06 to be able to spend time with him. Isn't that why we're 17:08 looking forward to heaven because we want to spend time 17:11 with God. Amen? Sure. So God is saying we don't have to wait 17:15 till then. Every single week I put aside a period of time to 17:19 come apart and we can have that special time together. God wants 17:23 not just a quality of time. Got wants a quantity of time. Have 17:27 you ever had a really good friend and you had a very close 17:30 relationship with but then that friend moved away? And you 17:33 didn't get to spend time with that friend anymore and it just 17:35 wasn't the same as it used to be because you just didn't spend 17:38 that time that you once did with that person. God knows that. 17:41 And so he says you know we need to spend that time regularly 17:45 together. We have it on those other days, true, but life is 17:49 busy. But on the Sabbath come apart, rest, and we'll just 17:53 spend some time together. And the devil seeks to nullify 17:56 everything that honors the true God. And so that is why sincere 18:01 Christian people today, they are missing this commandment, they 18:04 are breaking it every single week and a lot of them don't 18:08 even know it. Do you know the whole theory that has come into 18:11 Christian churches today that the 10 commandments are nailed 18:13 to the cross and done away with. You know the churches that say 18:16 that folks, they don't really mean it. The churches that say 18:20 the 10 commandments are done away with, every single 18:24 Christian church in this city believe thou shalt have no other 18:27 gods before me, they all believe that, the first 18:30 commandment. Every single Christian except one big one 18:33 believes thou shall not make any graven image or bow down before 18:37 those things. Every single Christian church in this city 18:39 believes thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain 18:42 honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not kill, commit 18:46 adultery, bear false witness, steal or covet. They all believe 18:49 in those folks. But there's one that gives them a problem and 18:54 that's the fourth commandment. because they're not doing it. 18:55 So because they're not doing it and they know they're not doing 18:59 it, they're not keeping the seventh day Sabbath, they're 19:01 willing to say that the whole law is done away but then they 19:05 turn right around and they say oh but in the New Testament we 19:07 bring back in nine of them, right? Now for thinking, 19:12 perceptive people that just doesn't' make sense. Not all, 19:16 folks. But in order to justify their breaking of that 19:20 commandment they go to all kinds of theological leaps and crazy 19:26 conclusions all saying the law is nailed to the cross, we've 19:30 got grace so we don't need the commandments any more. It's all 19:32 to try to get away from the fourth commandment. There's one 19:36 commandment that God specifically told us to remember 19:39 and it's the one commandment that churches today are telling 19:43 us it's okay to forget Right Now that again would make me wake up 19:47 right? Absolutely. Does it make any sense to throw out all 10 19:51 commandments as if they were bad and then by some kind of 19:54 theological magic bring back in nine of them. If I went to the 19:59 doctor and let's say that I had a really mangled fourth finger 20:03 representing the fourth commandment right? And the 20:07 doctor looked at my finger and says you know I wish I could 20:09 save it but I just can't. I'm going to have to amputate that 20:13 fourth finger. I say oh boy that's sad news, but okay. 20:15 So the doctor says here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to 20:19 cut off all 10 of your fingers and I'll sew back on the nine 20:24 good ones but I'll just leave that bad one-off. Would you hang 20:27 around that office very long. Chuckles. I'm sure you'd get out 20:30 of there as fast as you could, right? That's nonsense isn't it? 20:32 And yet churches today are saying the same thing. They're 20:36 saying the commandments are bad. They're burdensome, they're 20:41 legalistic. We got to cut them off. Right? Oh but all of a 20:44 sudden we need nine of them. Jesus said in Matthew 5:19 20:48 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, 20:50 and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the 20:52 kingdom of heaven. Jesus made it clear didn't he? 20:56 In James chapter 2 we read this: For whosoever shall keep the 21:00 whole law, and yet offend in how many? One point, he is 21:04 guilty of how much? All. Yes. That's the 10 commandments 21:07 friends. They are like 10 golden links of a chain. Think of it as 21:15 one chain with 10 links. It doesn't matter where that chain 21:18 is broken meaning it doesn't matter which commandment they 21:21 might put themself against the chain was broken. God thinks of 21:25 the 10 commandments as one law and that golden chain of 21:28 obedience is to be kept as one and that's why in 1 John 2 and 21:33 verse 3 and 4 and we looked at this the other night, it says 21:35 If we say we love God and we don't want to keep his 21:38 commandments we're a liar, right That's what the Bible says. So 21:43 when you honor the Sabbath you're honoring the whole law, 21:45 not just the fourth commandment but the entire law. It's all or 21:49 nothing. In fact God sees the law the same way. Now let's 21:54 establish what day of the week we're talking about here. Now 21:55 that we've established the permanency of the Sabbath, let's 21:58 see which day we're actually talking about. Is it Tuesday, 22:00 is it Wednesday, is it Friday? Because friends to be honest I 22:04 don't care what day it is, I want to do what God says to do. 22:07 Amen? Whatever it is I want to do what God says it is. 22:11 And so we find here in Genesis 2 and verse 3: And God blessed 22:15 the what day? Seventh-day and he sanctified it. Here's the 22:19 question. Can we really be sure what day the seventh day is. If 22:22 you were to go to a dictionary or an encyclopedia it's very 22:26 clear from those secular sources that it says the seventh day is 22:29 what we would call in our English, Saturday. Right? But if 22:34 we want to find the true Sabbath in the New Testament, we've got 22:37 to do a little more study here. If you go on a calendar you 22:43 start you know reading across, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, 22:45 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, one two, three, four, 22:48 five, six, seven there's no question. 22:50 Any school child can see that the seventh day 22:53 is what we would call Saturday. But let's go to 22:55 the Bible as our ultimate authority 22:57 and see what it says. In Revelation chapter 1 and verse 23:01 10 it says: I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. Now notice 23:07 John says he had a vision, he had it on the Lord's day. That 23:11 means it belongs to the Lord. That means it's different than 23:13 other days. Right? Different. Now unfortunately John doesn't 23:16 tell us here what day he's talking about. Just said he had 23:20 a vision. He had it on the Lord's day. But here is 23:23 something very important. We are well into the New Testament time 23:27 now. The other disciples have died off, John is still alive. 23:31 He's saying he had a vision and it was on the Lord's day. That 23:36 means there still was a special day called the Lord's day. Would 23:40 you agree friends? This does away with the idea that some 23:44 come up with that all days are the same in the New Testament. 23:46 They go to Romans chapter 14, they misinterpret one of Paul's 23:51 verses there and they read into it what they want it to say and 23:56 they say will Paul said all days are the same now. Paul didn't 23:59 say that at all. We're going to see both tonight and tomorrow 24:01 night exactly what Paul believed But he didn't say all days are 24:04 the same. They're imposing their belief upon those texts. But 24:09 John, after Paul had already died, He says I was in the 24:10 spirit and it was the Lord's day it still was in existence friend 24:16 But to be sure what day the Lord is, excuse me to be sure what 24:19 day the Lord's day is let's ask Jesus. That's the safety isn't 24:23 it, asking Jesus. So let's go here. We could discuss this for 24:27 a long time, each person having you're own opinion what day the 24:29 Lord's day is. But we do know that the Lord still has a day. 24:32 But Jesus said this in Matthew 12 and verse 8, he said: For the 24:36 Son of man...speaking of himself...is Lord even of the... 24:41 what day?...Sabbath day. Now if Jesus is Lord and he is Lord of 24:45 the Sabbath then that must mean that the Sabbath is the Lord's 24:48 day. Right. And if the English language is to make any sense 24:50 that's exactly what Jesus is saying. In fact, if you go back 24:54 to the commandment itself, it says that the seventh day is the 24:57 Sabbath and it's the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. It couldn't be 25:02 any plainer really. That means it belongs to the Lord. So let's go 25:06 to Mark chapter 2 now, verse 28. And here it says: Therefore the 25:10 Son of man...now again the Son of man is Jesus favorite 25:14 expression for himself. The Son of man is Lord also of the what? 25:17 Sabbath. The only day of the week that Jesus ever said he was 25:22 Lord of. Because he's Lord of the Sabbath. So what do we find 25:25 out? John said: I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. Jesus 25:29 in both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Mark said that 25:31 he is the Lord of the Sabbath. Let me just say this plainly 25:34 folks. The idea of the Lord's day being any other day than the 25:39 seventh day Sabbath is an idea that has been repeated 25:43 often enough 25:44 and by people influential enough that innocent sincere Christians 25:49 have got caught up in that and they started to believe it. And 25:52 I know this is new for some of you. I recognize that many of 25:56 you have been faithfully observing the first day of the 25:59 week, Sunday, as your day of rest, your day of worship, but I 26:02 challenge you as we go through this study tonight and our next 26:06 topic together to search the scriptures for yourself. Be like 26:10 that noble Berean and rather than ask what is popular out 26:14 there say what does the Bible really have to say? But we're 26:19 going to establish the Sabbath very clearly here in the New 26:23 Testament. Because people come along to you and they will say 26:26 that in the New Testament they will say that the Sabbath was 26:29 changed. That it became a different day of the week. Well 26:31 let's go find out. So go to Luke chapter 23 verse 54. It says: 26:36 And that day was the preparation and the Sabbath drew on, that 26:38 means the Sabbath was coming. Verse 56: And they returned, and 26:42 prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day 26:44 according to the commandment. Luke 24 verse 1: Now upon the 26:48 first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came 26:51 unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, 26:54 and certain others with them. So what do we have here? We've got 26:58 three days mentioned in quick but orderly succession. We've 27:03 got the day that Jesus died, we've got the day that Jesus 27:06 laid in the tomb and then the day that Jesus rose from the 27:09 tomb. One was called the preparation day, one was called 27:13 the Sabbath according to the commandment and then we've got 27:15 of course the first day of the week. So let's establish these, 27:17 shall we. Mark 15 verse 42. It says: And now when the even was 27:23 come...that means the evening... because it was the preparation, 27:25 that is...he's defining it for us...the day before the Sabbath, 27:29 So the preparation day according to scripture is the day before 27:33 the what? The Sabbath. That's right. So it says on that day 27:37 Joseph of Arimathea...went in boldly unto Pilate, and begged 27:40 or the King James says craved the body of Jesus. So the 27:44 preparation day in many of the Christian churches of today they 27:47 call it good what? Good Friday, right? Sure, the day that Jesus 27:50 died. So that's Friday. Now Mark 16 verse 9 says: Now when Jesus 27:54 was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to 27:58 Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. So now 28:01 we've got the first day of the week as the day that Jesus rose 28:05 from the tomb and in many Christian churches again they'll 28:08 refer to that as Easter what? Sunday. Sure. So we've got 28:12 Sunday the day that Jesus rose from the tomb. And here it is as 28:15 plain as plain can make it folks You've got the day that Jesus 28:19 died, Friday. You got the day that Jesus rose, Sunday. There's 28:25 only one day in the middle. That according to a seven-day week 28:26 and that's a week and that's the day we call in our English 28:28 Saturday, what the Bible calls 28:30 the Sabbath according to the commandment. The series of 28:37 events involving the crucifixion the entombment and the 28:41 resurrection of Jesus pinpoints for us what day the Sabbath is. 28:47 It nails it right down here friends. If Jesus rose on the 28:51 first day 28:52 then the day that came before that is the day the Bible calls 28:54 the Sabbath had to be the 7th day. So when does the Sabbath 28:59 begin and when does the Sabbath end? Let's go to Leviticus 23 29:03 and verse 32. And here it says: From even unto even...which in 29:07 the King James it means from evening to evening, shall you celebrate 29:11 your Sabbath. Now if you weren't sure what the evening was Mark 1 29:15 verse 32 says: and at even when the sun did what? Set. 29:19 So when the sun 29:21 set the next day of the week begins. So the sun has set now 29:25 that we have been here so biblically speaking what day has 29:29 now begun? Tuesday right. We're meeting here on a Monday. So 29:32 here we find that in the Bible the dark part of the day came 29:37 before the light part of the day When the sun sets the next day 29:40 begins. So we find now that when the sun sets on Friday evening 29:43 that means the Sabbath has come and when the sun sets on 29:47 Saturday night that means the Sabbath is over. So from Friday 29:50 sundown to Saturday sundown is the biblical Sabbath. Now what 29:53 day did Jesus keep. Again we want to...Sometimes folks you 29:56 just have to say the obvious. Christianity is following Jesus. 30:01 Would you agree? Now that wasn't very loud. Christianity is 30:06 following Jesus. Would you agree All right. So let's get that out 30:10 Luke 4 verse 16 says: And he came to Nazareth where he had 30:13 been brought up; and as his custom was...Now what is his 30:16 custom? Something Jesus always did. Now what was something 30:21 Jesus always did? It goes on... And it says he went into the 30:25 synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read. So Jesus 30:29 had a custom friends of going to worship on the Sabbath day 30:34 and we want to be walking in the footsteps of Jesus don't we? 30:36 Absolutely we do. So let's now to on and ask this question. Did 30:42 Jesus intend for his followers to also keep the Sabbath after 30:48 he died and rose from the grave. What about those who are 30:50 following him. He gave us that example. Let's go to Matthew 30:55 chapter 24. He was speaking to his disciples. They were asking 30:58 him questions about the end of the world and his coming. And 31:01 very interesting Jesus blended the event of the destruction of 31:04 Jerusalem with the end of the world. And Jerusalem was 31:11 destroyed in 70 A.D. by the General Titus of the Romans. 31:16 So he says of this event as they look forward in the future 31:22 because...But pray that your flight...that is the flight from 31:25 Jerusalem and Judea...be not in the winter, neither on the 31:29 what day? Sabbath day. He said pray that your flight is not in 31:32 the winter...winter because of the harsh conditions that would 31:35 be there, neither on the Sabbath day because the Sabbath day was 31:37 to be sacredly held. So he's telling his followers folks to 31:42 still be respecting the Sabbath day some 40 years into the 31:47 future. Now just think about this with me. If Jerusalem was 31:51 destroyed by the Roman army in 70 A.D., why would Jesus be 31:55 encouraging his disciples to be honoring the Sabbath day 40 31:59 years into the future if at that time there was no meaning for it 32:02 any more? And at that time the commandments are done away with 32:05 and at that time the Sabbath is no longer relevant. It would 32:07 make no sense. Those Christians did flee from Jerusalem before 32:12 it was destroyed. Not one Christian died in the 32:14 destruction of Jerusalem. God did answer their prayer. But if 32:18 Jesus thought the Sabbath was going to be changed he wouldn't 32:21 be telling them to honor it 40 years after his death and 32:22 resurrection. Now that alone should settle the issue of the 32:27 fourth commandment right there. Just that one passage. But let's 32:31 go in the New Testament because you will hear people tell you 32:33 that the disciples kept a different day. They will tell 32:37 you the disciples kept Sunday. Well folks people say a lot of 32:40 things that they can't back up from the Bible. Let's go find 32:43 out what the disciples did do. Acts 13 and verse 14: And when 32:48 they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and 32:50 went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down. Now 32:54 notice Luke doesn't say they went into the synagogue on the 32:57 day that used to be the Sabbath. Right? He didn't say that. Luke 33:01 did not say they went into the synagogue on that the Jews still 33:05 called the Sabbath. He didn't say that. He just said they went in 33:09 there on the Sabbath. Very, very casual because it was the 33:12 Sabbath. Sometime people say oh but the only reason they went in 33:16 there because that's where the Jews were, right? And they 33:19 wanted to witness to the Jews. Did the gentiles also worship on 33:23 the Sabbath? Let's go take a look here. It says in verse 42: 33:27 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles 33:30 besought that these words might be preached to them the next 33:34 what? Sabbath. They didn't say to the Gentiles hey the Jews 33:38 have their day of worship, you come on back the next day 33:40 because we've established that it's a different day for you. 33:42 He didn't say that did he? No, they were worshipping on the 33:45 exact same Sabbath day. Verse 43 Now when the congregation 33:51 was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes 33:52 followed Paul and Barnabas: who speaking to them persuaded them 33:57 to continue in the what folks? The grace of God. Now 34:01 folks, these were Christians and they were to continue in the 34:05 grace of God but they weren't just Christians, they were 34:08 Sabbath-keeping Christians. And they were continuing in the 34:11 grace of God. Don't let anyone tell you that grace-saved 34:16 Christians don't keep the Sabbath. Right? Or let me put it 34:19 the other way. Don't let anyone tell you that Sabbath-keeping 34:22 Christians aren't in God's grace Because these people were to 34:26 continue in the grace of God. The only way you can continue 34:29 in the grace of God is if you are in the grace of God. Amen? 34:33 Very clearly here. so when the gentiles wanted hear Paul preach 34:37 they weren't told to come back tomorrow. and Then verse 44: 34:41 and the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together 34:45 to hear the word of God. Now folks this is years after Jesus 34:50 ascended back to heaven. Why were they still keeping the 34:52 Sabbath? Because you don't change what God writes with his 34:56 finger in stone. Do you agree? They don't change it. So they 35:01 kept on doing it. Acts 18 verse 4? And he reasoned in the 35:05 synagogue...how often...every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews 35:09 only? No the Jews 35:10 and the Greeks. Here's Paul. He's in the city of Corinth a 35:14 Gentile city. He raises up a church 35:15 here they are honoring the Sabbath. And here's another one 35:19 from Acts 16 and verse 13. This one is really special because 35:24 this is not a meeting in a Jewish synagogue. This is out in 35:27 nature. And it says here: And on the Sabbath we went out of the 35:30 city by a riverside, where prayer was wont to be made; and 35:35 we sat down and spake unto the unto the women which resorted 35:38 thither. So we're in a Gentile city Philippi, no meeting in a 35:42 Jewish synagogue. It's out in nature which is a nice place to 35:45 spend a Sabbath, by the way. And here Luke again makes the 35:50 comment. He says and on the Sabbath. See how casually Luke 35:57 says on the Sabbath we did this on the Sabbath, we went here, on 36:01 the Sabbath this happened. Why would Luke just refer to the 36:04 Sabbath as natural as can be? Because it still was the Sabbath 36:08 It hadn't gone anywhere. It hadn't changed. It was a 36:14 specific day. All right. That takes care of that objection I 36:17 hope. Do you know that in fact every...think about it with 36:21 me...every single book of the Bible, 66 books, they come 36:26 together to make one book. Every single book of the Bible from 36:30 Genesis to Revelation was written by a Sabbath-keeping 36:35 person. Have you ever thought about that? Every single one of 36:39 them. Now put Jesus in the mix there who honored 36:42 the Sabbath throughout his life, 36:43 that's pretty good company to keep wouldn't you say? 36:46 Absolutely. That's where I would want to be. Some people are quite 36:48 certain that it doesn't matter which day you keep. They'll say 36:51 oh as long as you keep a day then you're all right. You don't 36:56 need to keep the seventh day Sabbath. Just keep one day a 36:58 week. Just keep a day. Now remember John 17:17 Jesus said 37:02 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy what? Word is truth. The 37:06 Bible says there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but 37:09 the end thereof are the ways of death. So we can't do what seems 37:12 right to us. We have to do what is right to God. John 4:24. It 37:17 says: God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship 37:20 him in spirit and in truth. It doesn't say they should worship 37:24 him. It doesn't say it's a good idea to worship him in spirit 37:27 and truth. It says they must. Our only safety is that which is 37:31 done through the Holy Spirit and in truth. Now suppose I was a 37:36 single man and suppose that you had seven lovely daughters. And 37:40 I came to you and I said I would like to marry one of your 37:43 daughters. And if I found favor in your sight, you might say to 37:47 me all right Brian, which one of the seven would you like to 37:51 marry? And if I responded to you and said it doesn't matter 37:55 really., A woman is a woman, just give me any one of them. 37:56 Um, how long would I last in your house? Right? I mean you'd 38:02 throw me out and rightfully so. Of course, there's a difference, 38:05 right? A major difference. When people say that the day of the 38:08 week to God, ah there's no difference in the days of the 38:10 week. Give me any one of them. I'll keep any day I want as the 38:13 Sabbath. God didn't say that all days are the same. In fact, 38:16 in Ezekiel 46 verse 1, he called the other days of the week the 38:19 six working days. He made them separate. He called them 38:24 separate from the Sabbath. But he didn't say all days are the 38:27 same. It said, he rested and blessed and sanctified a 38:31 specific day. Now if I said to you, bring me a book, you could 38:35 bring me any book. But if I said to you bring me the book you'd 38:39 know I meant a specific book. Right? And we've learned from 38:43 elementary school the article the or the is a specific article 38:46 It specifies a certain person, place or thing. So God didn't 38:50 say just keep a Sabbath. He said the seventh day is the Sabbath 38:55 of the Lord thy God. He didn't leave it up to us to choose. 38:57 God made it very clearly. The Jews have a saying folks that 39:02 goes like this. Israel is in the heart of the world and Jerusalem 39:08 is in the heart of Israel. And the temple was in the heart of 39:13 Jerusalem. And the Most Holy place was in the heart of the 39:17 temple. And the ark of the covenant was in the heart of the 39:20 Most Holy place and the 10 Commandments were in the heart 39:25 of the ark and the fourth Commandment was in the heart of 39:29 of the commandments. And in the heart of the fourth 39:34 Commandment are the words the Seventh Day is the Sabbath. Now 39:40 what significance does that have It's telling us that all true 39:45 worship has to center around the true God. Amen? If it isn't 39:50 around the true God, it is not true worship. And so the Sabbath 39:54 is the memorial, it is that which constantly directs us 39:57 toward who is the true God. The Sabbath is a memorial of God's 40:01 creation. Can you change a memorial just because you wish 40:05 to change it? In other words, the United States gained its 40:09 independence on July the 4th 1776. If I want to light off 40:13 fireworks on July the 3rd does that make it the independence 40:16 day because I light off fireworks then. Because if I 40:19 want to take the day off on July the 5th, right, and have a 40:22 holiday, does that make it July 5th because I want it to be 40:25 July the 5th. No. In the same way a person can say well I'm 40:27 going to take Wednesday off from work. I'll make that the Sabbath. 40:29 Oh, I got Monday, I'll make it... No friend, you can't do that. 40:32 Because God didn't make those days holy. Amen. In fact, while 40:39 I'm on that let's just address one other very common 40:42 misconception. Have you heard some very honest and sincere 40:45 people say: I keep every day holy. I'm just going to keep the 40:49 Sabbath every day because I'm going to keep every day holy. 40:51 Now let's be very careful with this and very candid. We can't 40:57 keep every day holy. Why? Because God didn't make every 41:02 day holy and we can't keep something holy that God did not 41:06 make holy. We can't make something holy any more than we 41:10 can change the rotation of the planets because we don't have 41:14 that power. God makes something holy. When Moses came before God 41:17 he said, Moses take off your shoes because the ground that 41:20 you're on holy ground. What made that ground holy? God's 41:23 presence was there. Amen. When someone says well I'm going to 41:28 keep all days as Sabbath. I'm going to rest every day. Folks 41:31 if they're going to rest every day they're not more sanctified 41:33 they're lazy, amen? We ought to live for God every day, correct? 41:37 Right. We ought to live for the principles of scripture and for 41:42 the Lord. We ought to live that every day. But that's different 41:45 than saying that every day is holy. God asks us not to do 41:50 secular labor on the Sabbath. That which we would do for our 41:55 regular secular work he says no, put that aside and rest and 41:59 spend it with me. There are what we call occupations of 42:03 necessity. Certain occupations where Jesus said it's lawful to 42:06 do well on the Sabbath and so you're ministering to other 42:09 people for their sake and not your sake. In other words, 42:13 firemen and police and paramedics and hospital nurses 42:15 and doctors. These are life saving ministry that can go on 42:19 on the Sabbath. They relieve human suffering, they can save 42:23 human lives. They help others that don't help themself. There 42:26 are certain things that... emergency services, care for 42:29 the sick or care for the elderly these things continue to operate 42:32 on the Sabbath because it's important with ministry. So if 42:37 it's important to ministry Jesus said that's all right. Acts 20 42:39 verse 27 Paul says: For I have not shunned to declare unto you 42:43 how much? All of the counsel of God. Now Paul I'm going to 42:47 ask you a question here. If you had not shunned to declare unto 42:51 us all the counsel of God, and if somehow the Sabbath has 42:55 gotten changed from the seventh to the first day of the week 42:58 then Paul why didn't you tell us In all of your books of the New 43:01 Testament Paul why didn't you somewhere tell us that God 43:05 switched. It doesn't say that though. There are more than 140 43:11 references in the Bible to the Seventh-day Sabbath. More than 43:14 140. There is not one text in all of the Bible that says 43:21 Sunday is sacred or the Sabbath has been changed from Saturday 43:24 to Sunday or anything like that. There is not one single text in 43:30 the Bible. Does the Bible say to keep Sunday in honor of the 43:34 resurrection. And they'll say well are we to forget that Jesus 43:37 rose from the grave. No not at all. We remember that Jesus died 43:42 for our sins when he gave us the ordinance of the Lord's 43:45 supper. We remember that he rose from the grave when you have the 43:48 ordinance of baptism. Romans chapter 6 says just as Jesus 43:52 died and was buried and rose again so we also through 43:54 baptism figuratively do the same So we aren't to forget that 44:00 Jesus did any of that folks? Now if you were to go to...if you 44:04 were to leave here tonight and you were to go to almost all 44:08 Sunday ministers and you very politely, very sincerely, you 44:14 say can you please tell me why we go to church on Sunday when 44:19 the Bible says in, Old Testament, New Testament, Jesus, the 44:22 disciples, it's clear that they went to church on the seventh 44:26 day Sabbath. Why are we going on Sunday? They'll give you one of 44:29 three answers. Number one: They'll say oh well the law was 44:32 nailed to the cross. Now we studied in the seminar, we know 44:36 that the moral law of God, the 10 commandments, were not nailed 44:39 to the cross. There are voluminous scriptures that tell 44:43 us that. And it makes no sense to believe that. It was the 44:48 ceremonial system of sacrifices that was nailed to the cross 44:51 and done away with when Jesus died. That was to pass away. 44:56 Jesus is our Passover. We've covered that. If they can't fool 45:01 you with that they'll give you answer number two. Answer 45:04 Answer number two is Well um we keep Sunday in honor of the 45:10 resurrection. Now again we know the Bible never says to keep 45:14 Sunday in honor of the resurrection. Not at all there's 45:16 no scripture at all that tells us that. So you simply say well 45:19 can you show me one verse that says we should keep Sunday in 45:22 honor of the resurrection. They can't. So if they can't fool you 45:25 with answer number one, and they can't fool you with answer 45:28 number two. They'll give you answer number three. And answer 45:32 number three goes like this. They go ah-ahmm-mm mm ahum Where 45:36 did you learn this? And you say well I was going to the Prophecy 45:40 Unsealed seminar going on right now and I learned it right from 45:43 the Bible. There's verse after verse after verse. Ohh. Well 45:48 don't go back there. Now folks we said opening night here 45:53 something very important. And I said either we are going to show 45:56 you that which we present from the Bible or you don't have to 46:00 believe it at all, Amen? And folks again this is verse after 46:04 verse. There's no question about it. When people don't like 46:09 someone else's position and they can't defend their own position 46:14 from the Bible, you know what they do, they ridicule it. They 46:17 put scorn upon it. And that's what they mean when they say 46:19 Oh that's just the Sabbath of the Jews. Right. You don't need 46:22 to keep that. That's only for them. We don't keep that. Right? 46:25 You know folks it's a shame but they did that to Jesus. When 46:31 they could not gainsay the positions that Jesus put forth 46:34 they said to Jesus in John chapter 8. Oh, we be not born of 46:39 fornication. How terrible. How unfair. Right? But that's what 46:46 they said. But you see when people say things like that 46:48 it can have an effect. So they'll throw out things like 46:52 that to try to persuade you to you know forget about it, leave 46:58 it alone, don't go down that path. Folks we are not here to 47:03 follow popularity, we are not here to follow traditions, we 47:07 are here to follow Jesus and the word of God. Amen? Keep in mind, 47:11 when the devil doesn't have scripture he uses argument. 47:15 Carefully crafted argument that sounds good at the beginning 47:21 when you put it by the Bible they fall pretty fast. The 47:24 Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, 47:25 that which I grew up reading 47:27 it says this: Which is the Sabbath day? Answer: Saturday is 47:31 is the Sabbath day. I commend them for their honesty here. 47:34 There's no question in their mind. They know. Question: Why 47:38 do we observe Sunday instead of Sabbath? Answer from the 47:42 Catholic Catechism: Because the Catholic church transferred the 47:44 solemnity...which means the sacredness...from Saturday to 47:47 Sunday. Have you any other was of proving that the church has 47:51 the power to institute festivals of precept? The answer: Had she 47:55 not such power she could not have done that which all modern 47:58 religionists agree with her- could not have substituted the 48:01 observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the 48:03 observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which 48:07 there is no scriptural authority That means that change isn't in 48:13 the Bible. In the Catholic Encyclopedia it says this: The 48:20 church, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath 48:23 They call it the Jewish Sabbath. The Bible never calls it that...Of the 48:27 seventh day of the week to the first made the Third Commandment 48:29 refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's Day. 48:33 Here they're calling the fourth one the third because they 48:36 removed the second one from their catechism. So they're 48:40 saying, yeah we made that change we simply call that the Lord's 48:45 Day now. From the book Catholicism and Fundamentalism 48:48 which was written by a Catholic apologist he said: 48:52 fundamentalists meet for worship on Sunday, yet there is no 48:54 evidence in the Bible that corporate worship was to be made 48:56 on Sundays. The Jewish Sabbath, or day of rest, was, of course, 49:00 Saturday. It was the Catholic Church that decided Sunday 49:04 should be the day of worship for Christians, in honor of the 49:06 resurrection. Mmmm. Again nothing in the Bible that says that. 49:13 They're simply putting a meaning upon it that the Bible doesn't 49:14 give. From Faith of Our Fathers the very famous Cardinal James 49:18 Gibbons said: You may read from Genesis to Revelation...which 49:22 means from cover to cover...and you will not find a single-line 49:25 authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The scriptures 49:29 enforce the religious observance of what folks? Saturday. He's 49:33 saying if you want to go by the Bible it says Saturday. All 49:39 right? One of the former popes, Pope Benedict, look what he had 49:42 to say here. He said: If one considers the importance that 49:47 Saturday has in the Old Testament tradition based on the 49:50 account of the creation and on the Decalogue...the Decalogue is 49:53 the 10 Commandments...it is evident that only an event of 49:57 overwhelming force could cause giving up Saturday and replacing 50:00 it by the first day of the week. He said the creation day was 50:05 Saturday and he said the Sabbath of the 10 commandments was 50:08 Saturday. He admitted it right there. Jesus kept holy. In other 50:12 words when they can't gainsay any other argument they'll 50:15 always come up with this one. Well probably the calendar's 50:18 been changed. Right? Have you heard that one? How do we know 50:21 that this week we have now is the same week you had back in 50:24 Jesus' day? And they throw that out there hoping that you'll 50:28 just say, yeah well they probably have them mixed up so 50:30 that's good enough for me. They're hoping you'll just grab 50:33 onto it. They can't prove that. There's no evidence of it but 50:37 they throw it out there as a last ditch effort to try to 50:41 confuse people. Well the simple truth is this folks. Time has 50:44 never been mixed up. The weekly cycle, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, 50:49 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. That has never been 50:52 broken. Jesus walked on this earth less than 2000 years ago. 50:56 Jesus was God on the earth, Amen Called the Son of God because 51:00 of his relation to the Father but he was never less fully 51:04 divine. In Jesus' day, they had what they called the Julian 51:07 calendar named after Julius Caesar. And they knew what the 51:11 calendars were in that day. They knew what the days of the week 51:15 were and Jesus obviously had no problem knowing what day was the 51:19 Sabbath. It says in Luke 4:16 he went into the synagogue on 51:22 the Sabbath. They knew what day the Sabbath was. We have the 51:24 calendars from then, we have the calendars from now. We have the 51:28 seven-day week, it's never been broken and there's literally 51:34 thousands of these calendars. Now Rome was ruling the world 51:37 There was one major calendar change in the year 1582. So I 51:42 can bring that to your attention The Julian calendar was 360 days 51:48 and six hours. Not too bad. But it's 11 minutes off. So those 11 51:53 minutes accumulated and accumulated and accumulated 51:54 till finally the calendar was out of sync with the season. 51:56 So in order to bring the calendar back into sync with the 51:59 season, they decided to make a change in the year 1582. And 52:04 what they did was in the time of Pope Gregory, they dropped 10 52:10 days out of the calendar system. 52:11 So October of 1582 started Monday the first, Tuesday the 52:15 second, Wednesday the third, Thursday the fourth, but instead 52:17 of making Friday the fifth, they made Friday the 15th. And time 52:22 continued as it always had but did that change the order of the 52:26 days of the week? Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 52:27 Friday. No in fact all of the ways that they considered to 52:33 change the calendar, they never ever considered changing the 52:37 order of the days of the week. Not at all. So some people in 52:43 that day accepted that calendar right away. Other countries 52:46 waited for a while but today we have what we call the Gregorian 52:48 calendar because Pope Gregory was ruling during that time. 52:52 Nevertheless the astronomers today, those that track time, 52:58 and they can track time down to the most minute part of a second 53:01 But do you know that in over 105 languages in the world the 53:07 word for the seventh day of the week is Sabbath. Right? Russian 53:10 and Bulgarian and Spanish and on and on and on and on. But we 53:15 unfortunately in our English call it Saturday what they call 53:18 Sabbath. Is that just a coincidence? You think 105 53:22 languages and more just got together and said hey, let's 53:23 just call the seventh day of the week Sabbath. No, no. They knew 53:25 the weekly cycle, they knew of the Sabbath from antiquity 53:31 friends. And when those languages developed they simply 53:34 brought that word for rest right into their very language. Isn't 53:41 it obvious that if Satan is going to attack the government 53:44 of God, he's going to attack the law of God. Isn't it logical 53:48 that if he's going to attach the Creator he's going to attack the 53:51 sign of the Creator. You see folks when you look up in the 53:55 sky we have a reason why we have a 365-day year, right? The earth 54:00 is going around the sun. We have a reason why we have a roughly 54:05 30-day month of the lunar cycle. We have a reason why we have a 54:07 24-hour day. The earth is turning on its axis. Why do we 54:10 have a 7-day week. We can't look up at the stars and see a 7-day 54:14 week. We have it from an arbitrary arrangement from God 54:17 that he established in the Garden of Eden and it has come 54:20 all the way down through history to this very time. The 7-day 54:25 cycle is as ancient as time itself. You can prove the 54:30 Sabbath biblically, you can prove it linguistically in 54:36 regard to language, you can prove it historically. There's 54:40 no mistaking it then. In every area the evidence is 54:45 overwhelming what day is the true Sabbath. In almost all of 54:50 the Christian churches today somewhere in their writings 54:52 they agree with exactly what we've studied here tonight. 54:56 You're going to get this when you go out. It's called the 54:59 Churches' Comments and there's a quote here from the Baptist 55:01 Church, the Catholic Church, the Christian Church, the Church of 55:05 Christ, Congregational Church, the Episcopal Church, the 55:08 Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, 55:11 the dictionary and the encyclopedia all agreeing 55:15 exactly what we've studied here tonight, the seventh day's the 55:19 Sabbath. You say well if they all agree on it then why aren't 55:22 they doing it. I can't answer that because I don't want to in 55:24 any way judge their motives, but I can tell you something. Once 55:28 something has become institutionalized it almost 55:31 never changes folks. God calls people to change. He doesn't 55:34 call institutions to change but it's there; it'll be there when 55:40 you go out tonight because I want you to think. Why don't 55:45 those churches change if they know the truth? Because God 55:49 calls people to follow truth. Faith is simply taking God at 55:54 his word isn't it? We don't want to go beyond what God says and 55:57 to fanaticism. We don't want to fall short of what God says for 56:03 a lukewarm Christian experience but rather we want to do what is 56:06 right according to the Bible. Do you know? Why is this called 56:13 God's test of loyalty? The Sabbath is the perfect test 56:16 because part of it does not appeal to reason. It's true that 56:21 rest appeals to reason but a specific day of rest does not 56:26 appeal to reason. In the Garden of Eden when God said to Adam 56:30 and Eve you can eat of all the trees of the garden but of that 56:32 tree you cannot eat. That tree. Did God explain it anymore to 56:40 them. He just said you can eat of everything, not that one. 56:43 And Eve must have wondered wow you know. I'm not really sure 56:47 why God said that. I don't really understand it and 56:51 because I don't understand it I think I'll just do it. Right? 56:54 And look at the problems we've inherited. In other words, 56:59 basically Eve took the position I will follow God when it makes 57:02 sense to me and I will not follow God if it doesn't make 57:04 sense to me. And that is what we call a religion of your own 57:07 choosing. And many people do the same thing today in regards to 57:09 the commandments. They say well I don't really understand why 57:12 God would have to have the seventh day when I want it 57:15 another day. Right? Well God says it's this day. And that's 57:19 why it's a perfect test. Will we follow God because it's what 57:23 he says or will we do what we want to do. That's why it makes 57:29 it a test day. What's going to be our guide. Is it going to be 57:34 tradition or is it going to be the word of God. If you're not 57:38 Sure, do the safe thing. Follow Jesus. Follow what Jesus said 57:45 Follow what Jesus did. Follow the example that Jesus set for 57:51 his church. In the judgment we will not get in trouble by 57:56 following Jesus. Would you agree You may have a question still 57:59 about the Sabbath and I understand that. This is brand 58:02 new for some of you. But how many of you tonight would like 58:06 to say with me This much I do know. I want to do God's will 58:10 by God's grace. Can we all agree on that tonight. You want to 58:14 do God's will by God's grace. 58:18 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2025-05-29