The Beauty and Meaning of God's Sabbath Day

For millennia, God's faithful people have recognized that the quality of our Sabbath observance affects the quality of our relationship with our God.

And the foundation of a rich, fulfilling Sabbath experience is based on our proper understanding of the Scriptures. Now, I gave a sermon a couple years ago talking about the Sabbath, but I thought, you know, and I thought that what I covered there was fine. But I wanted to go through something more in depth today. And so my theme today, if you want to write down a theme or a specific purpose, it would be this. The beauty and the meaning of God's Sabbath Day is thoroughly documented in Scripture. The beauty and meaning of God's Sabbath Day is thoroughly documented in Scripture.

You know, years ago, we were told by the organization we were a part of that we never thought we'd ever leave, that the Sabbath was no longer, you know, there was no longer such a thing as holy time, that the Sabbath was as good as any other day of the week, and so on and so forth.

It was not incumbent upon New Covenant Christians to keep, and this and that and the other. And of course, none of you fell for that. You all had a better understanding of the Bible than that.

But as, brethren, as time goes along, as you see what's happening in our country today, if we've got eyes to see, our country is crumbling. Just as, you know, we used to think prior to 1994 that what was going to happen to church, we'd have all this persecution from the outside, and that was going to be the reason so many of us would leave, so many people would leave the church.

Well, it happened from within, didn't it? And we're seeing the same thing in our country today.

It's happening from within. Just the other day, I was watching online a newscast about, I think it was the state of California. They showed a man who was shoplifting. Now, he wasn't running for his life out the door with his goods. Maybe some of you saw the clip. This man had a backpack on. The backpack was literally this wide. It was from his head to below his bottom.

It probably ballooned out this deep. It was full of goods. He's walking out the door.

Nobody is stopping him. Nobody arrested him. And apparently in California, now, the law says that you can steal up to a thousand dollars.

What kind of country have we become? You know, the Olympics. I used to love watching the Olympics.

I don't think I'm going to watch the Olympics this year because I don't want to be pulling. You know, normally you want to pull for the red, white, and blue. But when you find some of these athletes, they win. They're on the winner's podium, you know, one of the three medals.

And then they turn their back when the flag is being shown, when the national anthem is being played. That gets me mad. There are plenty of people in this world who would die to live in our country. And we've got people who are so spoiled, they don't know what they have.

My goal for, part of the goal for me giving this sermon is we need to really appreciate what God has given to us spiritually. Because there will be people who will ask us the reason of the hope that's within us. And we certainly want to make sure that we understand one of the hallmark characteristics of our faith, which is keeping God's Sabbath. So let's begin. We're going to start here going through things that are really very basic, but basic is good. You know, if you want to be a good soldier, you go through basic training. Basic is good. It keeps you alive. Let's ask the question, why do we observe God's Sabbath day?

Let's ask that question now, and let's answer that question. That's one of my major points. Let's go to Deuteronomy, or not Deuteronomy, we could go there, but let's go to Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus chapter 20. And we're speaking specifically about the Sabbath day.

Next to this chapter 20, verse 8, where it says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

We are to remember it. You don't remember something you never knew or never heard of.

The Sabbath was made in Genesis chapter 2. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. In six days you shall labor and do all of your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your cattle nor your stranger was in your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. When people say any day of the seven is fine, that's not what God says. God took the seventh day and he blessed that day. God took the Sabbath day and hallowed that day. It's special. It's holy. And when the people who we used to fellowship with said there's no such thing as holy time, well they seem to have forgotten Exodus chapter 20 and verse 11. There is such a thing as holy time. God made it that way.

Now in your notes, I'm not going to turn there, but you can also write down Deuteronomy chapter 5 verses 12 through 15, which is the reiteration of the giving of the Sabbath command to the children of Israel before they were about to enter the promised land.

You also can put down Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 9 if you want a complete set of notes, what we went through in the sermonette. Now let's come let us reason together. I've got some reasoning here about why we observe the Sabbath day.

In the Ten Commandments, God instructed mankind to work on the first day of the week.

He commanded us to work on the first day of the week. Now we've got things called blue laws in this country where there's laws where you don't work on Sunday, and yet God said, go ahead and work on Sunday.

You know, there's a well-known food chain that is closed on Sunday. They make really great cookies and they do a lot with chicken. There's also a store that my wife likes to go to that sells knickknacks for the home, and they're always closed on Sunday. You know, the people who are doing this, brethren, they mean well. They, you know, I'm not trying to make fun of them. They mean well, but God has not called them to understand this. But maybe one of these days, some of these same people will come to you and ask, well, why do you keep the Sabbath?

And we need to be able to tell them. In Ezekiel 46, verse 1, God Himself calls the first day of the week a work day. God calls it a work day. Now, none of the patriarchs ever kept the first day of the week as a holy day. None of the prophets ever kept the first day of the week as a holy day.

Neither did the apostles. The apostles never rested on Sunday. And there's no biblical law from Genesis to Revelation. There is no biblical law enforcing the keeping of Sunday.

Now, here you might want to put down—and I'm going to quote a number of these, because if I had you turn to them, you'd turn to a thousand scriptures. But Romans chapter 4 and verse 15, Romans 4 and 15 says, where there is no law, there is no transgression.

There is no law about Sunday observance. And so there is no transgression.

People in certain churches are made to feel bad if they work on a Sunday.

And yet there's no law saying we should be working or not working on a Sunday.

So why do we keep the Sabbath day? Very obviously, because God commands that we keep the Sabbath day.

The second reason we keep the Sabbath day. The Sabbath pictures God as creator and us as the creation. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation, a sign of God's creative power. God designed that through keeping the Sabbath mansion, never forget who He is, that He is the living God, that He does things no other God of man's imagination ever could do.

Now with that in mind, let's look at Genesis 2.

Genesis 2. The very beginning of the story of the Bible. Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3.

Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3. Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. Genesis 2.2. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all of His work which He had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all of His work which God had created and made. So God blessed this day. He didn't bless... God made all the other days, but God did not bless them in the same way He's blessing this seventh day.

God made the other six days, but God did not sanctify the other six days the way He's sanctifying or setting apart the Sabbath.

Now, can we use some logic here? Can we use some reasoning?

How many Jewish people do you see here in Genesis 2?

How many Jewish people do we see? We don't see one, do we?

It's going to be roughly 2,000 years before there is somebody who's called Judah.

So when people say the Sabbath is for the Jews, oh really?

Genesis 2 says it's for man. Jesus Christ, who created all of this, said it's for man.

Why would Jesus Christ create something that's so beautiful and then abolish it later on?

By way of contrast, God did create the other six days of the week.

However, the Sabbath is very special to God. He set it aside for a very special purpose.

The other six days, the purpose for those days is to work.

The purpose of the seventh day is to worship God.

I'm not going to turn there. You could if you want to, which is a page over. Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 through 5.

The very first thing recorded in the book of Genesis is the work God did on the first day of the week. He worked on that first day.

On that first day, the first thing the Bible talks about is the work God did on Sunday.

So, if the Creator works on a Sunday, why shouldn't we work on a Sunday?

Brethren, Sunday is never called a day of rest, from beginning to end of Scripture.

God did not rest on Sunday. Jesus Christ did not rest on Sunday. It was interesting in listening to Scott Ashley talking about this particular idea.

When the Bible talks about Jesus Christ being a carpenter, who are the people who are putting together the King James Bible?

People in England. When they were thinking about working with your hands, what did they mostly work with? They mostly worked with wood, the forests of England.

But the word carpenter is not a good translation. A better translation would be that Jesus Christ was a stonemason. Trees are very uncommon in the Holy Land. You would still use trees for some things, like maybe a door frame or a window frame or things like that. But generally speaking, when you were working with things, you were working with stone. So Jesus Christ probably very probably was a stonemason. He worked that trade until he was 30 years old.

When you're working with stone and lifting stone and all of that, you develop a pretty good set of muscles. I don't think Jesus Christ looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But when he grabbed that whip and wanted to clean out the temple for the money changers, he was somebody when you looked at his physique, he needed to be reckoned with. He was a strong man, strong arm, strong hands.

But Jesus Christ probably did an awful lot of work on Sundays to get orders fulfilled, make sure whatever contracts he had out were being done.

Third thing, we observe the Sabbath day because God hallowed the Sabbath. We saw that in Exodus chapter 20 in verse 11. The word hallowed comes from Strong's number 6942. Strong's number 6942.

It means to consecrate, to sanctify, to dedicate, to be hallowed, to be holy, to be separate. So God did all of that with the weekly Sabbath, not with the other six days of the week. God never blessed Sunday. Christ never blessed Sunday. Sunday has never been sanctified in the Bible. Nobody who ever written a single word in the Scriptures ever said one word in favor of Sunday as a holy day. Now, I've got some very juicy quotes from the Catholics themselves, from the Protestants themselves, where they will attest to that fact. There's no place in the Bible where we are told to go from Sabbath-keeping to Sunday-keeping. It's just not there in the Bible.

Number four. God blessed the Sabbath. I know I'm kind of repeating some ideas, but they work so well together. God blessed the Sabbath. Brethren, if we don't observe the Sabbath day, we walk away from a blessing from God. Do you want to walk away from a blessing from God? I don't want to walk away from a blessing from God. The Sabbath is a day of a special grace, not conferred on any other days. God desired to bestow a special blessing on the Sabbath. Again, we see that next to this chapter 20 verse 11. Again, by way of contrast, no blessing is promised for Sunday observance. None. And number five, the Sabbath was made for man. Let's look at Mark chapter 2. Mark chapter 2 verses 27 and 28.

Mark chapter 2 verse 27. And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Now, we can tie that in with Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. It was Jesus Christ who, because God asked them to do the creating, God delegated that to Jesus Christ, the individual we call Jesus Christ today. Jesus Christ created the Sabbath.

There were no Jews around in Genesis. There just were no Jews around in Genesis chapter 2. And then Jesus Christ, the same one who created the Sabbath, says the Sabbath was made for man.

Doesn't say the Sabbath was made for the Jewish people or for Israel.

The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. As I may mention, the Sabbath was made more than 2,000 years before there ever was a Jew.

Now, let's dig on a little deeper. We're going to take some of the points I've already given you and dig a little deeper. Some specific thoughts on why we observe God's Sabbath day.

Letter A. The Sabbath reveals the true creator God to mankind. Let's go to Jeremiah chapter 10.

Jeremiah chapter 10 verses 10 through 12. Jeremiah 10, 10 By the way, he knows what's best for us. The whole of the Scriptures are a book written for our understanding so we can live a more prosperous life, physically and spiritually.

Brian, think on this. Billions of the world's inhabitants today do not worship the true God. They don't worship the true God because they don't keep the true holy day of God, the Sabbath.

You are in remembrance always of keeping the Sabbath which keeps your mind focused on God.

Let's look at John 17.

John 17, verse 3.

And this is, in my Bible's long-read lettering, the words of Christ. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

The Sabbath plays a very big part in our understanding who the true God is, what the true God wants us to do, how He wants us to live our lives, what laws are there for us to keep and not be worried about.

God tells us not to be worried about the laws of man when they break his commands or the philosophical ideas of man that are just so much vanity.

Now, God gives us true worth, true value in His Word. In your notes, you might want to jot down John 10, verse 10. That Christ came to give us the abundant life.

And that abundant life is made available to us as we are Sabbath observers, as we come to church on the weekly Sabbath to be taught, to be educated, to be inspired.

Again, specific thoughts on why we observe God's Sabbath. Let her be.

Let her be. The Sabbath reveals the true sanctifying God to mankind.

The true sanctifying God. Let's go to Exodus 31.

Exodus 31. And verse 13.

Now, here is a very special covenant that God made with Israel.

But, you know, years ago, Mr. Armstrong wrote a book and said, does God have two different types of Christians?

Are there Jewish or Israelite Christians and Gentile Christians, and they live by different sets of rules?

Or do they all live by the same set of rules?

Well, they all live by the same set of rules.

Now, explicitly, this is talking to the children of Israel.

Let's see what it says. The Sabbath reveals that God sanctifies us, sets us apart from the rest of the world, spiritually speaking, Ephesians 2 and verse 8. So this is talking about how you and I were set apart. How you and I were justified. Now, that's a big religious word, justified. Being justified means we've been given a right standing before God. A right standing before God because of God's grace. Our sins have been forgiven us.

But grace deals with more than just that. Grace also deals with what we see here in verse 10. For we are His workmanship. Once we have been saved by grace through faith, through the gift of God, not of ourselves, then comes verse 10. For we are His workmanship created in Jesus Christ for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So verse 10 talks about the fact that now we are sanctified or we are to live properly before God. To be justified means we have rights standing before God. Our sins have been forgiven. But to be sanctified means we are to live a right way of life. We need to now move forward in God's grace. To move forward in God's grace.

Again, going more deeply into some of the specifics of Sabbath observance, letter C.

The Sabbath reveals the true liberator God to mankind. Satan does a wonderful job, doesn't he? He wants people to realize or think that the Sabbath is a tremendous burden. It's a horrible thing. It's like a plague upon mankind.

That's not the way God views it. That's not the way we view it. The Sabbath reveals God as being a liberator. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 5, the second giving of the commandments.

Deuteronomy chapter 5. And look at verse 15. Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 15. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. So God is saying in this fourth commandment that this commandment has liberated the Israelites.

And the Sabbath liberates us.

You know, brethren, because we observe the Sabbath, and because we understand other truths of God as a result of us being Sabbath keepers, we also understand prophecy. We understand what's happening in the world. We understand where this is leading.

Now, people who aren't Sabbath keepers, who don't know the plan of God, they look at the same things we look at, and they're befuddled, and they're confused, and they're frightened. And they think, you know, what's going to happen? What's going to happen to our great nation?

You know, our people are coming to believe.

A lawless society where, again, some of the most sacred things, the idea of a man and a woman, of gender, well, that's greatly being blurred in our society today, isn't it?

Our history as a nation is bit by bit being eroded by various things that the teachers want to teach at all levels of school. It used to be only at the university level. Now, the largest teachers' union in the country wants to teach the critical race theory.

The largest teachers' union in the country, where if you're a white person, you're bad. You're an oppressor. If you're a black person, you're oppressed. Or if you're a person of color, you're oppressed.

Now, that's simply, patently, not true. White people can be oppressors, but black people can be oppressors, and brown people can be oppressors, and red people can be oppressors. And all people of all colors have been oppressed in times gone by.

But these things are eroding our nation. They're taking our nation down a path to bondage. Let's take a look at Romans 6.

Romans 6.

And verse 6.

Romans 6. And verse 6. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For he who has died has been freed from sin.

The Sabbath liberates us, reveals the true God that liberates us from Satan, from sin.

Dropping down to verse 16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? You are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?

But God, be thankful that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.

You kept God's laws. You kept the Sabbath. You were liberated from all the error that Satan wants to feed to you.

And having been set free from sin, verse 18, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.

For just as you present your members as slaves of uncleatness and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

So we have spiritual liberation because we worship the true God on the Sabbath day. James, let's see what Jesus Christ's brother had to say.

James chapter 1. James chapter 1, verse 25.

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one will be blessed in what he does.

God's law is a law of liberty.

In chapter 2 of James, in verse 8, it's called the royal law.

In James chapter 2, verse 12, it's called the law of liberty.

This comes as a result of our keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath reveals the true liberator God. And we would not know that God and that liberation if it weren't for us keeping the Sabbath. I remarked about this earlier in a sermon. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 and 29.

Where it says, verse 28, Come to me, all who you who labor and are heavily laid, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, gives us rest.

Gives us liberty from bondage, from Satan, from the things of Satan. And again, looking at how we drill down to the more specific thoughts regarding Sabbath observance, let's return back to Exodus chapter 31. Exodus 31. In that special Sabbath covenant we see here in Exodus chapter 31.

The Sabbath letter D, letter D, specific thoughts regarding Sabbath observance, the Sabbath is a sign of God's people.

Just yesterday I received a phone call from somebody in Racine, Wisconsin, and they were wanting to come to services. And they didn't know where they wanted to go. They lived in Kenosha. It looked like they lived in Racine, but he said he lived in Kenosha. He said, well, maybe I should go to Milwaukee. I said, what, you're fine to go to Milwaukee? Wherever you want to go, Milwaukee's probably closer from Kenosha, I would think. He said, well, maybe I can come to Hinsdale. I said, come to Hinsdale. You can come to Hinsdale if you want to. I think I make it as many minutes to Hinsdale as to Milwaukee.

So, anyhow, he's not here today. So we know that. But it was interesting. The man believes in the Sabbath, believes in the Holy Days. I asked him if he was looking for a more messianic type of a church.

He said he did. I said, well, I really don't think this is, you know, we want to be a good fit for you when you come. And I don't think that would be a good fit if that's what you're looking for.

But you're certainly welcome to come and listen if you'd like. But the Sabbath, rather than what we're seeing here in Exodus 31, the Sabbath is a sign of God's people. Let's look at this again. We read verse 30. Let's start again with verse 13. Speak also to the children of Israel, saying, Surely, my Sabbath, you shall keep. For it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sets you apart. So it's a sign of the true God, but it's a double sign.

It's also a sign of God's true people. It's a sign of God's true people. Verse 14. You shall keep the Sabbath. Therefore, it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death. For where it does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. You know, God is not saying here, well, keep the Sabbath if you want. It's an elective. You know, it carries a pretty big penalty if you don't keep it. You die. Verse 15. Work shall be done for six days.

That includes the first day of the week, Sunday. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Yes, there is such a thing as holy time. God says so. I don't care what the people in Pasadena say. They're not God. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath, they shall surely be put to death. Therefore, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath through other generations, as a perpetual covenant.

Who is the one speaking to the Israelites here? It is Jesus Christ. Why would Jesus Christ talk about a perpetual covenant just to abolish it down the road? Verse 17, it is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. And notice why. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. God wants us to rest and be refreshed, physically and spiritually. It's a sign, a perpetual sign, forever.

And again, as Mr. Armstrong pointed out, as logic tells us, God doesn't have two different types of Christians. Gentile Christians and Israelite Christians. If this covenant is imposed on the people of Israel, it's also for the Gentiles as well. Let's turn our attention now to some eye-popping admissions from the world of religion.

Before we do that, though, let's take a look at another scripture, Matthew 28. In Matthew 28, we see Jesus Christ talking. He has been crucified. He has been resurrected. It's the New Covenant era. And notice what Jesus Christ says here at the very end of the book of Matthew, Matthew 28, verses 18-20. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.

Where do we see Jesus Christ commanding Sunday and Christmas and Easter and Halloween and Valentine's Day and all those things? Do we see that? Teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. You know, Jesus Christ was with his men for, what, 40 days after his resurrection? He could have started talking about, well, you know, guys, there's something new afoot here. I want you to start keeping Sunday. Well, Jesus Christ didn't do that. No regulation is given as to how Sunday ought to be observed.

If Christ wanted to observe Sunday, why didn't he give us some instruction? People talk about what was done after the, you know, death of Jesus Christ. I'm just going to read these off to you. Because here we see other gospel or people who wrote other parts of the Bible, and their stand on following Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 11, verse 1. The Apostle Paul says, Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ. Paul imitated Christ. Christ kept the Sabbath. Christ kept the Holy Days. Christ tithed. Christ made sure he ate only what God told him to eat. And Paul said, Imitate me as I imitate Christ. You never see Paul keeping Sunday. James, the Lord's brother, in James 4, verse 12. I'll read this for you. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and destroy.

Who are you to judge another? One lawgiver. That's God. It's not the Holy Roman Catholic Church. One lawgiver. There was no Holy Roman Catholic Church at this point. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2, verse 21. For to this you were called because Christ also suffered us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps. As I've said in the past, that section of Scripture is explicitly talking about following Christ as being persecuted. But the principle is valid that we follow Christ in everything.

The Apostle John, 1 John 2, verse 6. He who says he abides in him, and Jesus Christ, ought himself to walk just as he walked. So we're seeing all these men who are talking. We're seeing James, Paul, Peter, John. And lastly, Jude, another one of Jesus Christ's brothers. Jude, verse 3. Beloved, while I was diligent to write to you concerning the common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to condemn earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to all the saints. The faith once delivered. Nowhere in that faith once delivered do we see Sunday worship. Now, let's take a look at what some of the churches have to say.

This is from Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th Edition, article on Sunday. And I quote, The earliest recognition of the observance of Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution of Constantine in 321 AD, an act in which all courts of justice, inhabitants of towns, workshops were to be at rest on Sunday, with an exception of ill favor of those engaged in agricultural labor.

So the Encyclopedia Britannica says, well, you know, it wasn't really a thing until 321 AD, keeping Sunday. From the Catholic Press, Sunday is a Catholic institution, and as claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. From beginning to end of Scripture, there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of the weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.

The Catholic Press says that. James Cardinal Gibbons, In Faith of Our Fathers, 88th Edition, page 89, says, you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you'll not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance on Saturday, a day which we never sanctify. Notice the admissions here. From the Conference Catechism of Catholic Doctrine. Question. Which is the Sabbath day?

Answer. Saturday is the Sabbath day. Question. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Answer. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church and the Council of Laodicea transferred to Salinity from Saturday to Sunday. The Church did this. We know there's one lawgiver, and it's not the Catholic Church. Protestants. Let's not leave them out of the citations here. Dwight Moody, my grandfather, graduated from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. I quote from Dwight Moody. He says, The Sabbath was binding and eaten, and has been enforced ever since.

This fourth commandment begins with the word Remember, turned to the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tablets of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?

From the Baptists, Dr. Edward Hissex writes, and I quote, There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day. But the Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will, however, be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week. Where can the record of such transaction be found? He says, Not in the New Testament. Absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week. To me, and I'm quoting again from the Baptists here, to me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' discussion with His disciples, often conversing with them about the Sabbath question, never alluded to any transference of the day. Also that during the forty days of His resurrected life, no such thing was intimated.

Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did not come into use in early Christian history. But what a pity that it comes br—now, listen to this. But what a pity! It comes branded with the mark of paganism, christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism. Last scripture. It's in Mark 7. Mark 7.

Mark 7, verses 7-9.

And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups and many other things as you do, all too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own tradition.

Brethren, today we've taken a look at why you and I observe the Sabbath day. We see the meaning of the day, we see the beauty of the day, we see how this is outlined thoroughly documented in scripture, and we've even also taken a look at what some of the people of the religious world say regarding Sunday.

And how really they understand there's no argument at all from scripture as to why they should be observing Sunday. So, when you're by the water cooler and people bring up the subject, or you're talking to your neighbor across the fence, or one of your relatives or whatever, and they ask you an honest question as to why you keep the Sabbath day, well, now we've gone through quite a bit for you to think on and to discuss with them.