Who Changed the Sabbath (Download ".pdf" lesson)

All over the world, many faithful Christians go to worship each and every Sunday. Yet, no biblical command can be found for worshipping on that day. Aren’t Christian’s commandment keeping Bible readers? How is it that major of the Christian world are keeping something that the Bible does not support? Who Changed the Bible’s Sabbath?

 

1.   Did God Change the Sabbath?

“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.” “For I am the LORD, I change not.” (Isa. 66:22, 23; Mal. 3:6).

 

2.   Did Christ Change the Sabbath?

“And he [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.” “I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” (Luke 4:16; John 15:10)

 

3.  Did the Apostle Paul Change the Sabbath?

“And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” “And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” (Acts 13:42, 44; Acts 18:4)

 

Father, like never before, send the Holy Spirit. Let Him open our hearts and minds, so we can walk in your statues and be blessed. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

 

4.   Who Changed It?

Daniel: “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws” (Dan. 7:25).

 

Ezekiel: “Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths…her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken” (Eze. 22:26, 28).

 

Isaiah: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20).

 

NOTE: Daniel said a power would come that would think to change the law. Ezekiel described the power as a false system of worship, whose minister turn away from God’s Sabbath, saying God has said when He has not. Finally, Isaiah said that if a system is not in harmony with the law and the testimony of God, then there is no light in that system.

 

WHERE DID SUNDAY WORSHIP COME FROM?

5.  The Roman Empire adopted it.

In the year 321 A.D., Constantine issued the first Sunday law edict. It read, “Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it

often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest, the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven.”—Great Controversy, p. 679, Italic Added.

 

6. The Roman Catholic Church claims to have created it.

“We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” Peter Geierman, The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1951) p. 50.

 

“The Catholic Church…by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.” – The Catholic Mirror, official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893.

 

“It pleased the church of God, that the religious celebration of the Sabbath day should be transferred to ‘the Lord’s day.’” – Catechism of the Council of Trent (Donovan’s translation 1867), part 3, chap. 4, p. 345. The same, in slightly different wording, is in the McHugh and Callan translation (1937 et.), p. 402

 

They proof of their power to change the day rest in the fact that the Protestant churches have accepted the change. They say, “Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her;--she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.”—Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism (3rd ed.), p. 174.

 

7.   Protestants agree that there is no Bible Command for Sunday observance.

“The Lord’s day was merely of ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment. – Jeremy Taylor (Church of England), Ducar Dubitantium, part 1, book 2, chap. 2 rule 6, secs. 51, 59 (1850 ed.), vol. 9, pp. 458, 464.

 

“The Lord’s Day is not sanctified by any specific command or by any inevitable inference. In all the New Testament there is no hint or suggestion a legal obligation binding any man, whether saint or sinner, to observe the Day. Its sanctify arises only out of what it means to the true believer.” – J. J. Taylor (Baptist), The Sabbatic Question, p.72.

 

“And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day…The reasons why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church, has enjoined it.” – Isaac Williams (Anglican), Plain Sermons on the Catechism, vol. 1, pp. 334, 336.

 

A CHOICE TO BE MADE

8.   How do you prove which side your on?

“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6:16)

 

9.  What does Jesus call worship that is not according to the Word of God?

“But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9).

 

10. When faced with the choice of following man or God, what should one do?

“Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

 

11. Must you make a choice?

“No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other”. “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served…or the gods of the Amorites…but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Luke 16:13; Joshua 24:15).

 

12. What is the result of serving two masters?

“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:18).

 

13.Do you understand that neither the Bible nor Jesus changed the Sabbath and that God still commandments true worship?

 

Answer _____________