When I was a young boy attending a Baptist church every Sunday, I had little understanding of what we were doing or why. As I grew older, it took some time before I thought to examine the reason why churches meet every week, and it took even more time before I understood the truth of God's Word about when and how to worship God. 

I had no idea that we met because God specifically commanded for people to assemble weekly to worship Him. Additionally, our entire congregation was ignorant of the fact that we were doing so on the wrong day - God commanded His weekly assembly to be on the Sabbath, which lasts from sundown on Friday until sundown Saturday.

When it comes to the question of whether to have church on Sunday versus Saturday, most people who advocate for Sunday fail to understand that God's Sabbath is about more than just what day of the week to have church! In fact, the Sabbath command is the 4th of the 10 commandments, and the verses there do not specifially mention going to church:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work... For in six days God created the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. Therefore God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:8-11)

The main feature of God's Sabbath day is that it is a day to rest from one's work. God didn't just arbitrarily choose a day on which people should go to church: He actually sanctified the entire day at creation by resting! The command to assemble for worship on the Sabbath day is in Leviticus 23:3, but the central focus of the Sabbath day is to rest and to respect it as God's holy time.

With this understanding, it becomes clear that the vast majority of Christianity has not only wrongly chosen to have church on Sunday, but they also fail to observe anything remotely like the Sabbath rest. Even those businesses that do close on Sunday are doing so on the wrong day, and they are likely not resting to the extent that God requires. In Isaiah 58:13-14, God elaborates on what He expects from us on the Sabbath:

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD.

God doesn't just prefer that we have church on Saturday instead of Sunday - He commands that we devote the entire day to Him! We should delight in the Sabbath rest that God has made for us and use it to seek God's pleasure rather than our own. Assembling together and resting from our work is only part of what God wants from us - and He wants it on the day that He has chosen, not Sunday. For a more in-depth discussion of why and how Christians should be observing the Sabbath day, a great deal of information can be found in our booklet "Sunset to Sunset: God's Sabbath Rest."

I learned the 4th commandment in Sunday school at a young age, but I was oblivious for years that my church was not keeping it properly. Have you recently "discovered" the Sabbath command, as I did? I would love to hear your personal stories, questions, and comments.