THE LORD'S DAY

Many Christians who are not Sabbath keepers by legal conviction try to be kind and inclusive with SDAs. This is because, in much of their teaching, they are sound and Bible based. The problem is, Revelation 22:18 above declares that all who add to the finished Word of God's Word will have the plagues in the Book added to them. That is a damning threat. Only the lost enter the Great Tribulation after the Rapture of the Lord's Church. The only way to enter the Tribulation is to be unsaved. Thus, the Bible text above damns the SDAs.

By exalting Ellen G. White as a revelator ("holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost...."), the SDAs damn themselves to Hell. There is no diplomatic solution to this difficulty. SDAs are heretics on their way to Hell if they hold Ellen G. White as authoritative in any way. For the record, SDA Sabbath Day School manuals quote Ellen G. White five to one over the Bible.

Furthermore, if some heretic with any common sense wanted to start a heresy that might deceive the masses, the last thing he should do is steal his new revelation from another person. The SDAs know very well that White plagiarized her writings, but they refuse to deal with the fact. This is another very good reason to NOT give them the time of day or the right hand of fellowship. They are gullible fools. This plagiarizing aspect is used against Mormons where Joseph Smith copied straight from the Bible in some of his alleged revelations. I would sooner get my religion from the Mother Goose as from Ellen G. White.

So, what do we then do about Seventh Day Baptists and Hebrew Roots groups who meet on the Sabbath and claim they are the only ones right with God? Answer: Rebuke them soundly for making a holy day a point of judgment.

Colossians 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Pastor Troy Dukes will say more on this below, but suffice it to say that no group of Christians has any business judging their brethren for not observing ANY day, and that includes Christmas and Easter. The Sabbath in the Old Testament was a shadow of things to come, and the thing that came was "The Lord's Day." The First Day of the Week was when Jesus presented himself risen to his disciples in the Upper Room. He was already alive on Saturday evening by sunset, but he did not go running to find his disciples until the next day for a very good reason.

GO HERE FOR A DISCUSSION OF THE CORRECT ELAPSE OF DAYS OF THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

So, if the only Christian fellowship near you is Seventh Day Baptist or Hebrew Roots, go visit them. If the rest of their doctrine is sound and based on the King James Bible, join in with them, and wash your car on Sunday from then on. You are under NO law to keep any day of the week holy. Or, let us be more biblically correct and say that every day of the week should be holy, or the Lord's Day, to a Bible believer.

In one church I pastored a lady lived half a block from our church who was Seventh Day Baptist. The nearest church of her denomination was ninety miles away, so she came to our church Sundays. She was a blessing and did not make a fuss over our meeting on Sunday. She did tell me one time that I would find a great blessing from God for keeping the Sabbath day, not doing work. I did not trouble her back on this, and the issue dropped away. Her whole family became a blessing in our fellowship. That is the way it is supposed to work.

I also note that in Muslim lands, where Christians meet to fellowship, they meet on Friday, the same day Muslims to to the mosque. If Christians in these nations went to church on Sunday instead of going to work like Muslims, they would be fired from their jobs and persecuted. The Colossians text above makes it very clear that these Christians have found the right solution to the issue.

I want to thank Pastor Troy Dukes for permitting me to reprint his study on Sabbath keeping here.

 

On the Sabbath Changed to Sunday:

By Pastor Troy Dukes

 

1. Some have gone so far as to claim the Catholic Church originated Sunday worship. However, this is impossible as Sunday worship was practiced before there was a Catholic church. They also killed baptists nearly to extinction for 1300+ years, so even if they claim they changed it, we have no reason to believe them. It was Christ that sanctified the Lord's Day, not any earthly organization.

2. The Bible says that Christ met with His disciples on the 1st day of the week, and the references in the Bible say that the Christians came together on the first day of the week. We have to go by the Bible.

Acts 20:7 And upon the **first day of the week**, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.

1 Cor. 16:2 Upon the **first day of the week** let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.

3. The Early church (pre-Catholic) claimed to meet on the 1st day as they were instructed by the apostles. Note Ignatius of Antioch (cir 112-120 AD)

"If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death - whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith....Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness...Therefore, having become His disciples, let us learn to live according to the principles of Christianity. For whosoever is called by any other name besides this, is not of God. Lay aside, therefore, the evil, the old, the sour leaven....It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity..." - To the Magnesians 9-10

One of the earliest known Christian writings is the Didache (c. 100 A.D.) It states that worship was on the Lord's Day.

14:1 "And on the Lord's own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure"

Don't believe everything you read about the Catholics. Everything that anyone wants to cast dispersion on, they blame on the Catholics. It just isn't true that countless, God-fearing, martyrs who denied the Catholic church and were never submissive to it, but used their last dying breath to oppose it, did not notice that they were obeying a Catholic holiday and not a Christian one. The history of the church proves that men have, in every century, found the truth from the Bible and worshiped God's way without any influence from the Catholic Church. It wasn't until the 1500's that some Baptists started worshiping on Saturday. I think they are wrong, but I am glad they worship unto God.

In addition, there is abundant testimony that the church kept Sunday and not Saturday in the earliest writings.

100 AD BARNABAS "We keep the eighth day [Sunday] with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead" (The Epistle of Barnabas, 100 AD 15:6-8).

150AD JUSTIN: "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place,

And there is also testimony that Christians did NOT keep the Jewish Saturday Sabbath

150AD JUSTIN: ...those who have persecuted and do persecute Christ, if they do not repent, shall not inherit anything on the holy mountain. But the Gentiles, who have believed on Him, and have repented of the sins which they have committed, they shall receive the inheritance along with the patriarchs and the prophets, and the just men who are descended from Jacob, even although they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circumcised, nor observe the feasts.

200AD BARDESANES: Wherever we are, we are all called after the one name of Christ Christians. On one day, the first of the week, we assemble ourselves together

200AD TERTULLIAN: "We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath" (Tertullian's Apology, Ch 16)

It is a denial of evident history to say that the Catholics got people to do this. Before there was a Catholic church, the disciples of Christ were confessing Sunday as their day of worship. The Scripture testimony should be enough, but if it is not, at least see that the Catholics have no claim, but antiquity for Sunday worship.

Pastor Troy Dukes

Grace Baptist Church
West Palm Beach

 

CONCLUSION

SDAs will talk to you as if you are a born again Christian and can have fellowship with them. The fact is, Ellen G. White told the SDAs in her teachings that those who kept Sunday worship, drank coffee, ate meat, and did not keep the law as she gave it to the SDAs are damned to Hell. She said that Sunday worship is the Mark of the Beast, and that is YOU. You cannot have fellowship with an SDA. They do not believe you are born again, even though they will tell you they believe you are. They are law keepers of the Old Testament kind, and they consider you Goyim just as the Jews do.

I will give you a powerful way to blast an SDA with their own hypocrisy. Open your Bible to this text, and ask them to read it.

Deuteronomy 23:12 Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad:
13 And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee:

The Jews of the Old Testament times carried a feces paddle with them. This was used to dig a hole to defecate into and then cover it afterward. Ask the SDA person trying to play games with the Law if they carry a feces paddle. If you want to be ready for them, find a wooden mixing spoon at the grocery store, and paint it Israeli blue. Drill a hole in the end of the handle, and put a leather thong through it. Have this ready to show you SDA antagonist. Tell them that you keep the law better than they do because they don't even have a feces paddle, a very simple law to obey.

For my feces paddle I printed out the Deuteronomy verse and pasted it on one side of the spoon, and the Colosians 2:16-17 on the other side of the spoon. This sort of method of attack on wicked heretics is called asymmetric warfare. It is time to ambush the wicked and help them make fools of themselves. You cannot save a heretic without first making him mad by showing him what a fool he is. But, see if you can save some:

Jude 1:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.