Saturday Sabbath with Jews and Sunday with Gentiles?

Don't buy into Satan the devil's lie that Sunday is "the Lord's Day."

by Guy C LaMar

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I noticed a video on social media where a person was ranting about how Sunday was “the Lord’s Day,” and that the Sabbath was only for the Jews.

Here is a collection of vital information that we would like to share with you on this MOST IMPORTANT matter. We can assure you, there is a whole lot more that can be said than just what we have here in this article.

The book of Genesis─the name means “beginnings” ─ speaks almost immediately about the subject of the holy Sabbath─the seventh day of the week. It is as though the LORD God wanted this vital issue clearly established in the minds of people from Their “Instruction Manual” from the outset.

Near the book’s beginning, immediately after the “Creation chapter” concludes, God’s living word states this –

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2) And ON THE SEVENTH DAY God ended His work which He had done, and HE RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY from all His work which He had done. 3) Then God BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY AND SANCTIFIED IT, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” – Genesis 2:1-3.

Now, while no one should have missed, or misunderstood, the importance of this passage, nearly everyone has.

There is a belief in the minds of a great many regarding the Jewish people, and whether these ONLY were, or still are, to observe the holy Sabbath. Then there are still others who wonder which is the seventh day of the week on our modern Gregorian calendar. And, can we really know which day should be observed? Still, others do recognize that our Lord Jesus Christ kept the holy Sabbath, but are taught and believe that He “kept it for us.” Or, “He kept it because He was Jewish.” And still yet, there are a great many that teach and believe that the holy Sabbath is and has always been the seventh day of the week, but that “the Roman Catholic Church,” and the supposed authority granted to Saint Peter, changed observance to the FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK─SUNDAY.

In God’s living word, when the LORD God (Matthew 4:4) mentions the word Sabbath or the seventh day, it is referring to the day we call “Saturday” on the Gregorian calendar. Nearly every reputable biblical commentary will point this out. Most people do know that the holy Sabbath is taught repeatedly in the Old Testament. Yet, most people reason amongst themselves that this is for the Jewish people. And, they continue to reason that when our Lord Jesus Christ came, He changed the holy Sabbath to Sunday in the New Testament.

Did He!?

The word Sabbath or Sabbaths is mentioned 172 times throughout God’s living word. You may be shocked to learn that 60 of these words are found in the New Testament.

Throughout the New Testament, you won’t find any proof that Jesus ever changed the holy Sabbath day.

Early in our Lord Jesus’ ministry, we find that He taught on the holy Sabbath day (Mark 1:21; 6:2; Luke 4:31; 13:10). In fact, Luke 4:16 says this was His custom! Mark 2:27-28 says, “And He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28) Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.’”

Yes! Our Master Lord Jesus is the Master of the Sabbath! Which was made for you and me!

If our Lord Jesus had changed the holy Sabbath to the first day of the week─Sunday, the apostles who were taught directly from our Lord Jesus would have known about it. The Apostle Paul and those with him who were traveling to Antioch went into the synagogue on the Sabbath to preach (Acts 13:14-15). This was many years after the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

In verse 42, after the Apostle Paul’s Sabbath sermon, many of the Jewish people who heard him became offended and left. But notice –

“On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God” – verse 44.

Glorious!

The Gentiles, those who had no prior knowledge of a holy Sabbath observance, begged that these glorious words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now, why didn’t the Gentiles ask him to come back the following day─Sunday? Because the Apostle Paul, like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, kept the holy Sabbath!

Notice Acts 17:2 – “Then Paul, AS HIS CUSTOM WAS, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures.” Friends, this occurred some twenty-eight years after the death and glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ! And, we see that it was the Apostle Paul’s custom to remember and keep the Sabbath holy, just as it was our Lord Jesus’ (Luke 4:16).

Within those same years (Approximately A.D. 65), the Apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. After discussing the Millennial rest (denoting or relating to a period of a thousand years) in the first few verses of chapter 4, the Apostle Paul then shifts to the weekly holy day that pictures that Millennial rest –

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” – Hebrews 4:9.

The Koine Greek word for rest is sabbatismos, which simply means “keeping of the holy Sabbath.”

Many Holy Bible margins point this out. The Apostle Paul taught in the book of Hebrews that we are to remember each week on God’s holy Sabbath of a soon-coming Millennial rest for the entire world.

Now, there is another verse that adds to the verses we have thus covered. It is found in Matthew 24:20 – our Lord Jesus speaking to the Israelites –

“’ And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.’”

(In the end-time when you see the ‘abomination of desolation’ get out of Judah, flee, and when a lot of the Jewish people see their torment coming, are going to attempt to leave what we call ‘Israel’ today. Many are going to head north and try and cross Turkey over into Europe. And the Turks will NOT allow them. The Turks will round them up and sell them or kill them. Horrible end-time trauma comes upon the nation of Judah; modern-day Israel. (Again, be sure to read our two-part article “The Day of the LORD” in which more can be found concerning this ‘abomination of desolation’ spoken of by Jesus Christ). This whole passage in Matthew 24 is prophetic. Our Lord Jesus is talking about a future ‘great tribulation’ that is so terrible that it involves the whole world, and if the LORD God didn’t cut it short, “’ no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.’” – verses 21-22.

This ‘great tribulation,’ such as has not been since the beginning of the world, has not occurred yet in the history of mankind. But it is soon coming onto the world scene. When it does come, God’s people will be protected. Minister Michael C. Garrett speaks of this period of time –

“Now, I’ve always thought: well, IF God resurrects His people – His spiritual people; the spiritual House of Israel – ON THE SEVENTH TRUMP, and we know that the Battle of Armageddon is about the Sixth of the Seven Last Plagues – the Day of the LORD, theoretically, everyone who should have been resurrected has already been resurrected, so, to whom was He referring!? I think most of the decades I’ve been around … it was sort of assumed, and I think incorrectly, that those ‘elects’ were somehow the Church members. But keep in mind, IF you properly understand the order of events, the Church members – the people who have God’s Spirit – will at that time have been resurrected already. So, who is the ‘elect’? Well, notice what it says in Isaiah 45:4 – “’ For Jacob My servant’s sake, And Israel My elect, …’” Who’s He saving the earth for!? … He’s saving the elect as in physical Israel. For the sake of the physical people of Israel, those days will be shortened.”

(Garrett, M.C., Feast of Trumpets – ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ 29 Sept. 2019).

Our Lord Jesus Christ tells His followers in Judah to pray that at the time of the end of this age, their flight will not be on a holy Sabbath.

There are lots of New Testament teachings about the Sabbath.

In God’s living word, there is little said about the first day of the week─Sunday. While God’s holy Sabbath on the seventh day of the week is mentioned 60 times in the New Testament. The first day of the week is mentioned eight times.

In 1st Corinthians 16:1-4, the disciples were told by the Apostle Paul to take up a “collection for the saints” “on the first day of the week.”

There are many who use this as a proof text to show that people should go to church on Sunday, and should collect money each Sunday. One should read the entire passage!

Romans 15:25-28 shows that this collection was taken for the saints in Jerusalem because they were extremely poor. Furthermore, the Apostle Paul said he would help carry the collection if they needed him – 1st Corinthians 16:4.

Surely, this was a collection of food and clothes items─not money. It was for the saints in Jerusalem, not for all the churches. And, they were instructed to lay something aside on the first day of the week─Sunday. This is not a command to gather together and worship the LORD God on Sunday!

In Acts 20:7, we find that the disciples gathered together on the first day of the week to “break bread” (which simply means to have a meal). This was an evening gathering that lasted until midnight. To better understand this passage, we must understand when the LORD God’s days begin and end. A “Day” begins at sunset. The LORD God’s holy Sabbath is to be remembered and kept holy from Friday at sunset to Saturday at sunset wherever you are. If this gathering in the book of Acts was at night on the first day, then it would have been on what we call Saturday night. The Apostle Paul preached until midnight. And, he was left behind by his companions that night (see verse 13). Now, if it was a commanded assembly on the first day of the week, they would not have left him. But, they left Brother Paul and began sailing that night. The following day (Sunday), Brother Paul proceeded to walk some 20 miles to Assos. Be sure to read the whole story and you will begin to see that this is in no way a command to observe Sunday! The Apostle Paul was merely taking advantage of his last opportunity to meet and speak with the brethren at Troas─which was on Saturday night.

Colossians 2:16-17 is also misapplied by a great many to supposedly “do away” with the LORD God’s holy Sabbath. It reads –

“So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17) which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”

(Verses 16-18 do not abolish the dietary laws of clean and unclean meats, the festivals, or the weekly Sabbath of God. Rather, Paul is clearly affirming that the Gentiles in Colosse were to continue to observe these commandments as they had been taught. Paul was instructing the Colossians to disregard the criticisms and harsh judgments of those outside the Church because the observance of these days is a continuing foreshadow of the things that are yet to come in God’s Plan. By being faithful and keeping these commandments of God, they would always be worshiping the true God, be built up in Jesus Christ, and never lose the understanding of God’s Plan. By true repentance to God the Father and Jesus Christ, they would not be deceived by the vain philosophies of men, nor would they be seduced into the worship of fallen angels ─ Satan and his demons. The Holy Bible In Its Original Order A New English Translation by Fred R. Coulter. York Publishing Co., 2007, 2009, pg. 1199).

God’s living word shows us that the “Body of Christ” is the Church – see 1st Corinthians 12:27. That is the point that our beloved Apostle Paul was making. Brethren, we can’t allow any individual or group of people determine for us what is God’s Way─ what day we should or shouldn’t remember and keep holy. The LORD God tells us and reminds us through Their Spirit within us─ the “body of Christ.” The Lord Jesus─the Head of the Church determines what is doctrine. Not any man. God’s living word COMMANDS us that we are to “’ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy’” – Exodus 20:8.

Yet, let us not overlook this important part that the Apostle Paul spoke of –

“which are a shadow of things to come, …”

The General Sherman Tree, in the sun, casts a shadow. Follow the shadow, it leads to the largest tree in the world! If you cut down this enormous tree (the holy Sabbath in this metaphor), then there is no tree.

The Lord Jesus’ holy Sabbath, as this “shadow,” is a weekly reminder of not only the spiritual rest this world will have in the Millennium, but also a weekly reminder of the LORD God’s awesome Plan for the redemption of all humanity─past, present, and future!

Sadly, the majority of new easy-to-read Bible translations have greatly bastardized verse 17 to make it sound like our Lord Jesus Christ “kept it for us.”

As a note: Compare the original Authorized Version, the King James Version, with the New English Bible. The only mistake in the KJV is the word “is” was added by the translators.

It’s also important to note that this Epistle of Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul to the Gentiles at Colosse, “the uncircumcision of your flesh.” The Gentile converts had no prior understanding of the holy Sabbath, or of a physical circumcision of the foreskin of the penis. Yet, the Apostle Paul discusses it with them. He told them that not only are they “dead” in their sins against the LORD God upon conversion, but also they are no longer required to receive a “circumcision of the flesh,” because that was part of the Old Covenant─our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ “having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it [the Old Covenant] to the cross.”

This world’s Judeo-Christianity, along with this world's Christianity, has never properly understood God’s living truth in this matter. Also, the Sabbath that was drawing near when our Savior Jesus Christ was being tortured, humiliated, spat upon, rejected, scourged with a whip, and eventually murdered, was NOT a holy seventh-day Sabbath─it was an annual Sabbath─one of the LORD God’s annual holy days (John 19:31).

In A.D. 31, the year that our Lord Jesus was crucified, that annual Sabbath occurred on a Thursday. Our Lord Jesus died on the afternoon before─on Wednesday.

Three full days and nights bring the actual glorious resurrection to the afternoon of Saturday, shortly before sunset. By the end of that Sabbath afternoon, our Lord Jesus was already gone – Matthew 28:1. Do you realize what this means!? The main “proof” that this world’s Christianity uses to allow for a Sunday observance is that “our Lord was resurrected on that day.”

No, He wasn’t!

So, there is absolutely no biblical proof whatsoever of a Sunday observance. Where did this damnable belief originate!?

Changing the official holy day of gathering together and worship from the LORD God’s seventh-day Sabbath to the first day of the week─Sunday, was ordered by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. On March 7th, 321, he issued a civil decree – making Sunday a day of rest from labor. Stating, “All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable day of the Sun.”

Here is a portion of the Edict Against the Heretics by Constantine – 

“FORASMUCH, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, that you be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your assemblies: and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you, therefore, who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion, take the far better course of entering the catholic Church, and uniting with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In any case, the delusions of your perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with and mar the felicity of our present times: I mean the impious and wretched doublemindedness of heretics and schismatics. … from this day forward none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public.”

Friends, here is historical proof of the enforced observance of Sunday. To assemble together for worship on any other day was considered heretic!

In the fourth-century A.D., the Catholic Council of Laodicea affirmed Sunday worship and declared that all Sabbath-keeping Christians are heretics. At that Catholic conference, it was determined – Canon 29 –

“Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be Judaizers, let them be anathema [meaning cursed or excommunicated] from Christ.”

Today, many Sunday-observing “Christians” admit the holy Sabbath was changed by the Roman Catholics

Roman Catholics and Methodists Confessions –

Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174. “Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?

“Answer: 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.”

CLOVIS G. CHAPPELL, Ten Rules for Living, page 61. “The reason we observe the first day instead of the seventh is based on no positive command. One will search the Scriptures in vain for authority for changing from the seventh day to the first...”

Charles Buck, A Theological Dictionary, Sabbath – “Sabbath in the Hebrew language signifies rest, and is the seventh day of the week... and it must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day.”

Sunday School Advocate, Dec. 31, 1921 – “… In those days the people worshiped the sun because many words were made to tell of many thoughts about many things. The people became Christians and were ruled by an emperor whose name was Constantine. This emperor made Sunday the Christian Sabbath, because of the blessing of light and heat which came from the sun. So our Sunday is a sun-day, isn't it?”

New York Herald 1874, on the Methodist Episcopal Bishops Pastoral 1874 – “The Sabbath instituted in the beginning, and confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets, has never been abrogated. A part of the moral law, not a jot or a tittle of its sanctity has been taken away.”

Biblical scholars will try to reason their way around the LORD God’s immutable living truth! But, the LORD God DOES NOT command nor endorse any kind of Sunday gathering or worship. Instead, the LORD our God commands –

“’ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy’” – Exodus 20:8.

The LORD God’s Law commands us to remember and keep the Sabbath day holy. Throughout God’s living word in the Old Testament, you will find it repeatedly. And, when the children of Israel began defiling the LORD God’s holy Sabbath, it led to their captivity – see Jeremiah 17:27; 52:12-15.

The children of Israel were commanded to remember and keep holy the Sabbath day. The LORD God’s prophets kept the holy Sabbath! – see Ephesians 2:19-21. Our Lord Jesus Christ remembered and kept holy the Sabbath day. Again, it was His custom (Luke 4:16). All of the apostles observed the seventh day holy Sabbath (Acts 17:2). They FOLLOWED our Lord Jesus Christ’s example! In 1st Corinthians 11:1, our beloved Paul says, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”

The LORD God’s holy Sabbath day was “made for man, not man for the Sabbath” – see Genesis 2:2-3. And, the Eternal God made it by not working on that day, and resting and sanctifying it – setting it apart.

The holy Sabbath is not just for Jewish people – it’s for ALL MANKIND

True Christians follow Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Who is now an awesome being sitting at the right hand of Father God in the upper heavenly realms! He remembered and kept the holy Sabbath. The apostles ─long after the glorious ascension of our Master Jesus Christ remembered and kept the Sabbath day holy.

Sunday keeping is something that Satan the devil instituted to deceive all mankind from properly learning of the LORD God’s FOURTH COMMANDMENT. But, mankind being stiff-necked in his religiosity, refuses to accept that he has been beguiled. Because their traditions are what they prefer over observing a command from the LORD God.

Friends, our Lord Jesus warned that people would worship Him in vain by teaching and observing doctrines of mankind.

It’s simple – we can either do the things that Almighty God commands, or the ways of this world, which are under the influence of Satan the devil – as he is the “god of this age” – 2 Corinthians 4:4.

The holy Sabbath day ─Friday sunset to Saturday sunset was not instituted by the Jewish people. It was instituted by the LORD God. The holy Sabbath day was kept long before the Jews were ever even mentioned in God’s living word!

And, as already mentioned – our Lord Jesus makes it abundantly clear that the holy Sabbath day is vitally IMPORTANT – even in the times of the end of this age.

DO NOT buy into the lie that Sunday is “the Lord’s Day.”

Sunday keeping is not the Lord’s Day – nor is it the holy Sabbath day.

The holy Sabbath ─ the seventh day ─ is the day to remember and keep holy.

The holy Sabbath is known today as Saturday. The day instituted by the LORD God – the family of God.

The 7th Day.

It is from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset as the LORD God instituted from the beginning.

The Day of the Sun is a man-made idea influenced by Satan the devil to get mankind away from properly keeping the Ten Commandments! □