Why God Said Remember


Copyright by Joe Crews.
  All rights reserved.



Numerous surveys and questionnaires have confirmed that the most 
popular form of modern skepticism is to deny the creation story.  
Seventy-two percent of ministers interviewed expressed varying 
degrees of doubt that God actually spoke the world into 
existence according to the biblical account.  This fundamental 
disbelief has led to the rejection of other foundational 
doctrines of Christendom such as the virgin birth and the 
atonement.
It is interesting to note that God apparently anticipated a lot 
of controversy over the Genesis record of fiat creation.  His 
claims of manufacturing all the staggering mass of matter by 
merely commanding it to exist--well, there would certainly be 
doubters and disbelievers of such an account.  And even those 
who read about it and believed it would soon forget the 
miraculous fact under the confusing influence of a million false 
gods who would arise.
So God needed to do something unusual to preserve the knowledge 
of His mighty act of creation.  That power to speak heaven and 
earth into existence would distinguish Him from all the 
counterfeit gods and their deceptive claims.  What could He do 
that would constantly point mankind back to the focal week of 
creation when He forever established His divine authority?  

Creation--The Mark
of God's Sovereignty

God chose to memorialize that convincing display of creative 
power by setting aside the seventh day of creation week as a 
holy day of rest and remembering.  It would constitute a 
tremendous safeguard of God's sovereignty--a mark of His right 
to rule as the only true God.  It would, at the same time, stand 
as a devastating debunking of every god who had not created the 
heavens and earth.
The writings of Old Testament prophets are saturated with 
reminders of God's peculiar powers of creation.  David wrote, 
"For all the gods of the nations are idols:  but the Lord made 
the heavens."  Psalm 96:5.  Jeremiah expressed it:  "But the 
Lord is the true God, he is the living God. ... The gods that 
have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish. 
... He hath made the earth by his power."  Jeremiah 10:10-12.
Did God Himself demonstrate an extreme urgency in keeping the 
truth of creation vividly before the eyes of the world?  Yes.  
To such a degree that He wrote into the heart of His great moral 
law the binding obligation of every living soul to keep the 
Sabbath holy, and thus, to acknowledge His divine authority.  
Within those eternal principles forming the foundation of His 
government and reflecting His own perfect character, God wrote 
these words:  "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six 
days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:  But the seventh 
day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God:  in it thou shalt not do 
any work. ... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, 
the sea, and all that in them is ... wherefore the Lord blessed 
the sabbath day, and hallowed it."  Exodus 20:8-12.
What an act to highlight the omnipotent work of creation!  Once 
a week, as the earth rotated on its axis, the Sabbath reminder 
would travel around the earth reaching every man, woman, and 
child with the message of an instant creation.  Why did God say 
remember?  Because to forget the Sabbath is to forget the 
Creator also.

Conversion--Creative
Power at Work

Parallel to the accounts of a physical creation we find the 
record of God's power to recreate the human heart.  Evidently, 
the two processes stem from the same omnipotent source.  It 
requires just as much power to effect conversion or recreation 
as to call something into existence by creation.  Said the 
apostle, "Put on the new man, which after God is created in 
righteousness and true holiness."  Ephesians 4:24.  Since the 
new birth is the most basic identifying mark of the justified 
believer, it is no wonder that the Bible writers constantly 
remind us of the creative power which distinguishes the true God 
from all counterfeits.
Pointing beyond the mere fact of a physical creation, God spoke 
these words also, "Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be 
a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the 
Lord that sanctify them."  Ezekiel 20:12.
Please note that a sanctified Sabbath was to be the mark of a 
sanctified people.  The word, "sanctify," meaning to set aside 
for a holy use (a day which spoke of God's creative power), 
served also as a reminder that God could set people apart for a 
holy use through regeneration or recreation.
In the light of these facts, it is easy to understand why the 
devil has waged a continuing, desperate battle against the 
seventh-day Sabbath.  For almost six millenniums he has worked 
through pride of tradition, misinformation and religious bigotry 
to destroy the sanctity of God's special sign of authority--the 
Sabbath.  
As a mark of God's right to rule, the Sabbath challenged Satan's 
boast that he would take God's place.  Said the adversary, "I 
will exalt my throne above the stars of God. ... I will be like 
the most High."  Isaiah 14:13, 14.  Satan actually wanted to be 
worshiped.  To accomplish this, he had to nullify God's claim as 
the rightful ruler.  God's authority rested on His claim to be 
the Creator, and the Sabbath was the mark of that authority.  By 
destroying the Sabbath, Satan would prepare the way to set up a 
counterfeit government based on counterfeit claims of authority 
symbolized by a counterfeit day of worship.

The Battle Over Authority

It is fascinating to look back over the ages and see the 
outworking of the great controversy between Christ and Satan.  
The contest has always focused upon the issue of authority.  
The strategy of the evil one has been a two-pronged attack on 
God's claim to be the Creator.  First, by the theory of 
evolution with its humanistic doctrine of natural selection.  
Second, by an age-long effort to destroy the observance of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, the mark of creative power.  
We can only say in passing that each of these hellish attempts 
to discredit God's authority has produced a bitter success 
beyond all expectation.  Millions have been turned into 
religious skeptics and agnostics as a result of Darwin's 
doctrine of organic evolution.  Denying any fall of man which 
would necessitate a Saviour from sin, evolution struck at the 
plan of redemption as well as the fact of creation.  
In a similar vein, Satan's attacks on the Sabbath have led 
millions to disobey the one commandment in the Decalogue which 
God had made the specific test of obedience to the entire law.
A successful plan to subvert the loyalty of millions who were 
devoted to the true God required a masterpiece of satanic 
strategy.  It would take time.  It would involve centuries of 
deceptive mind-bending.  There would be no dramatic turn from 
serving God to serving Satan.  The secret would be to win 
obedience through religious subterfuge.  Satan understood the 
principle of Romans 6:16 long before Paul ever penned the words, 
"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, 
his servants ye are to whom ye obey?"
Obedience is the highest form of allegiance and worship.  If 
Satan could create an issue that would cause people to disobey 
God, he had an even chance of winning their obedience to his 
cause.  The decisive contest would take place over the law of 
God.  It constituted the foundation of God's government.  How 
could Satan destroy confidence in the law and make people obey 
him instead?  And which commandment should he attack?  
Obviously, the one which pointed to God's creative power and His 
right to rule.  As the identifying sign of the true God, the 
Sabbath has always been an object of satanic hate.  God had 
chosen the Sabbath as a test of loyalty to His law in the Old 
Testament:  "That I may prove them," said the Lord, "whether 
they will walk in my law, or no."  Exodus 16:4.

The Test Point
of the Law

Since God had made the Sabbath the test point of all the Ten 
Commandments, Satan determined to make it the giant issue of the 
ages.  By destroying the Sabbath, Satan would be prepared to 
launch his super-plan to claim obedience to a counterfeit day of 
worship.  Manipulating the weakness of a compromised 
Christianity which had slowly acceded to pagan influences, Satan 
set up his masterpiece--a worldwide church-state--which would 
ruthlessly enforce compliance with his counterfeit system of 
worship.
For over a thousand years, beginning with the so-called 
conversion of the pagan Emperor Constantine, the dark history of 
apostasy unfolded.  Almost the first act of the newly-professed 
Christian emperor was to make a law against Sabbath-keeping and 
to institute other laws requiring rest on the first day of the 
week, a wild solar holiday dedicated to pagan sun worship.
We will not dwell, at present, upon the well-documented history 
of the papal church councils which enforced the observance of 
the pagan Sunday on pain of death.  The facts are well-known to 
those who have been willing to search the records with an open 
mind.  During the fourth and fifth centuries, the first day of 
the week was exalted by papal decree to displace the true 
Sabbath of the Bible.
Unfortunately, prejudices and false information have led 
thousands of Christians to close their eyes to the overwhelming 
historical evidences of this substitution.  The roots of their 
prejudice are not hard to identify.  Satan has worked too long 
on his opposition system to allow it to be rejected easily.  
Through the ages he has perfected a series of subtle false 
arguments to bolster obedience to his counterfeit day of 
worship.  He still hates the Sabbath which identifies the true 
God.
Only as we expose these attacks on the seventh-day Sabbath will 
we be able to understand why millions continue to observe the 
first day of the week, a day for which there is not a single 
supporting Bible text. No one disagrees with the meaning of 
God's handwritten law, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
Lord ... in it thou shalt not do any work."  Yet millions do not 
obey it.  No one can refute the overwhelming evidence of 
Sunday's pagan origin, yet millions keep it instead of the 
plainly commanded Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.  Why?  I 
repeat, the reason is rooted in the clever arguments of Satan 
which have created a climate of prejudice against the holy 
Sabbath of the Lord.  We shall now examine some of the major 
fallacies of those arguments.

The Sabbath Was Made
Only for the Jews

This falsehood has gained such strength that multitudes of 
Christians refer to it as the "Jewish Sabbath."  But nowhere do 
we find such an expression in the Bible.  It is called "the 
sabbath of the Lord," but never "the sabbath of the Jews."  
Exodus 20:10.  Luke was a Gentile writer of the New Testament 
and often made reference to things which were peculiarly Jewish.  
He spoke of the "nation of the Jews," "the people of the Jews," 
"the land of the Jews," and the "synagogue of the Jews."  Acts 
10:22; 12:11; 10:39; 14:1.  But please note that Luke never 
referred to the "sabbath of the Jews," although he mentioned the 
Sabbath repeatedly.
Christ clearly taught that "the sabbath was made for man."  Mark 
2:27.  The fact is that Adam was the only man in existence at 
the time God made the Sabbath.  There were no Jews in the world 
for at least 2,000 years after creation.  It could never have 
been made for them.  Jesus used the term "man" in the generic 
sense, referring to mankind.  The same word is used in 
connection with the institution of marriage which was also 
introduced at creation.  Woman was made for man just as the 
Sabbath was made for man.  Certainly no one believes that 
marriage was made only for the Jews.
The fact is that two beautiful, original institutions were set 
up by God Himself before sin ever came into the world--marriage 
and the Sabbath.  Both were made for man, both received the 
special blessing of the Creator and both continue to be just as 
holy now as when they were sanctified in the Garden of Eden.
 It is also interesting to note that Jesus was the One who made 
the Sabbath in the first week of time.  There was a reason for 
His claim to be Lord of the Sabbath day (Mark 2:28).  If He is 
the Lord of the Sabbath day, then the Sabbath must be the Lord's 
day.  John had a vision on "the Lord's day," according to 
Revelation 1:10.  That day had to be the Sabbath.  It is the 
only day so designated and claimed by God in the Bible.  In 
writing the Ten Commandments, God called it "the sabbath of the 
Lord."  Exodus 20:10.  In Isaiah He is quoted as saying, "The 
sabbath, my holy day."
But we must not overlook the fact that this God who created the 
world and made the Sabbath was Jesus Christ Himself.  John 
wrote:  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with 
God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not any 
thing made that was made. ... And the Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the 
only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth."  John 
1:1-3, 14.
Paul clearly identified Jesus as the Creator, "... his dear Son:  
In whom we have redemption through his blood. ... For by him 
were all things created."  Colossians 1:13-16.
For Christians to separate Jesus from the Sabbath is a tragic 
mistake.  For He is the Author, the Maker, the Sanctifier, and 
the Architect of the Sabbath.  To discount the blessing which He 
placed on that day is to deny His authority.
This argument has led many to believe that the Sabbath existed 
only for a limited period of time following creation.  But is 
this a fact?  Actually, the Sabbath could never be just a type 
or shadow of anything, for the simple reason that it was made 
before sin entered the human family.  Certain shadows and 
typical observances were instituted as a result of sin and 
pointed forward to the deliverance from sin.  Such were the 
sacrifices employed to symbolize the death of Jesus, the Lamb of 
God.  There would have been no animal sacrifices had there been 
no sin.  These offerings were abolished when Christ died on the 
cross, because the types had met their fulfillment (Matthew 
27:51).  But no shadow existed before sin entered this world; 
therefore, the Sabbath could not be included in the ceremonial 
law of types and shadows.
Paul referred to the temporary system of ordinances in 
Colossians 2:14-16 as being "against us" and "contrary to us."  
He tied it to the meat offerings, drink offerings, and yearly 
festivals of the law that was "blotted out."  It is true he 
referred to sabbaths also in the text, but take careful note 
that he called them "sabbath days which are a shadow of things 
to come."  Were some sabbath days blotted out at the cross?  
Yes, there were at least four yearly sabbaths which came on 
certain set days of the month, and they were nailed to the 
cross.  They were shadows and required specified meat and drink 
offerings.  All of these annual sabbaths are described in 
Leviticus 23:24-36, and then summarized in verses 37 and 38:  
"These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be 
holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the 
Lord, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and 
drink offerings, every thing upon his day:  beside the sabbaths 
of the Lord."
The Scripture plainly differentiates between the annual, shadowy 
sabbaths and the weekly "sabbaths of the Lord."  The ceremonial 
sabbaths were blotted out at the cross; they had been added as a 
consequence of sin.  But the Sabbath of the Ten-Commandment law 
had been hallowed before sin was introduced and was later 
incorporated into the great moral law written by the finger of 
God.  It was eternal in its very nature.
Just Keep Any
Day in the Seven

By this argument Satan prepared the world to accept a substitute 
in place of the Sabbath God had commanded.  Upon the tables of 
stone God wrote the great, unchanging law of the ages.  Every 
word was serious and meaningful.  Not one line was ambiguous or 
mysterious.  Sinners and Christians, educated and uneducated, 
have no problem understanding the simple, clear words of the Ten 
Commandments.  God meant what He said and He said what He meant.  
No one has tried to void that law as too complicated to 
comprehend.
Most of the ten begin with the same words:  "Thou shalt not," 
but right in the heart of the law we find the fourth commandment 
which is introduced with the word, "Remember."  Why is this one 
different?  Because God was commanding them to call something to 
memory which already existed but had been forgotten.  Genesis 
describes the origin of the Sabbath in these words, "Thus the 
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.  
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. ... 
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that 
in it he had rested from all his work which God created and 
made."  Genesis 2:1-3.
Which day did God bless and sanctify?  The seventh day.  How was 
it to be kept holy?  By resting.  Could any of the other six be 
kept holy?  No.  Why?  Because God commanded not to rest those 
days but to work.  Does God's blessing make a difference?  Of 
course.  This is why parents pray for God to bless their 
children.  They believe it makes a difference.  The seventh day 
is different from all the other six days, because it has God's 
blessing.
Some more questions:  Why did God bless the day?  Because He had 
created the world in six days.  It was the birthday of the 
world, a memorial of a mighty act.  Can the Sabbath memorial be 
changed?  Never.  Because it points backward to an accomplished 
fact.  July 4 is Independence Day.  Can it be changed?  No.  
Because the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 
1776.  Your birthday cannot be changed, either.  It is a 
memorial of your birth, which happened on a set day.  History 
would have to run through again to change your birthday, to 
change Independence Day, or to change the Sabbath day.  We can 
call another day Independence Day, and we can call another day 
the Sabbath, but that does not make it so.
Did God ever give man the privilege of choosing his own day of 
rest?  He did not.  In fact, God confirmed in the Bible that the 
Sabbath was settled and sealed by His own divine selection and 
should not be tampered with.  Read Exodus 16 concerning the 
giving of manna.  For 40 years God worked three miracles every 
week to show Israel which day was holy.  (1) No manna fell on 
the seventh day.  (2) They could not keep it overnight without 
spoilage, but (3) when they kept it over the Sabbath, it 
remained sweet and fresh.
But some Israelites had the same idea as many modern Christians.  
They felt that any day in seven would be all right to keep holy:  
"And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on 
the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.  And the 
Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments 
and my laws?"  Exodus 16:27, 28.
Get the picture?  These people thought another day could be kept 
just as well as the seventh day.  Perhaps they were planning to 
observe the first day of the week, or some other day which was 
more convenient.  What happened?  God met them and accused them 
of breaking His law by going forth to work on the seventh day.  
Would God say the same thing to those who break the Sabbath 
today?  Yes.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever--He 
changes not.  God made it very clear that, regardless of their 
feelings, those who go forth to work on the Sabbath are guilty 
of breaking His law.  James explains that it is a sin to break 
even one of the Ten Commandments:   "For whosoever shall keep 
the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.  
For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not 
kill.  Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou 
art become a transgressor of the law."  James 2:10, 11.

We Can't Locate
the True Seventh Day

This is a fallacy that has comforted many in their disobedience 
of the fourth commandment.  It just is not true.  Here are four 
positive proofs which identify the true Sabbath today:

1.  According to the Scriptures, Christ died on Friday and rose 
on Sunday, the first day of the week.  Practically all churches 
acknowledge this fact by observing Easter Sunday and Good 
Friday.  Here is the Bible evidence:  "This man went unto 
Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.  And he took it down, and 
wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in 
stone,  wherein never man before was laid.  And that day was the 
preparation, and the sabbath drew on."  Luke 23:52-54.
Here is proof that Jesus died the day before the Sabbath.  It 
was called "the preparation day" because it was the time to get 
ready for the Sabbath.  Let us read the next verses:  "And the 
women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, 
and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.  And they 
returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the 
sabbath day according to the commandment."  Verses 55, 56.
Please notice that the women rested over the Sabbath "according 
to the commandment."  The commandment says, "The seventh day is 
the Sabbath," so we know they were observing Saturday.  But the 
very next verse says, "Now upon the first day of the week, very 
early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the 
spices which they had prepared. ... And they found the stone 
rolled away from the sepulchre."  Luke 24:1, 2.
How clearly these three consecutive days are described for us.  
He died Friday, the preparation day, commonly called Good 
Friday.  He rested in the tomb on the seventh day, Sabbath, 
"according to the commandment."  That was Saturday.  Then on 
Sunday, the first day of the week, Easter Sunday to many, Jesus 
arose from the grave.
Anyone who can locate Good Friday or Easter Sunday will have 
absolutely no difficulty finding the true Sabbath.

2.  The calendar has not been changed so as to confuse the days 
of the week.  We can be positive that our seventh day is the 
same day Jesus observed when He was here.  Pope Gregory XIII did 
make a calendar change in 1582, but it did not interfere with 
the weekly cycle.  Our present Gregorian calendar was named 
after him when he made that small change in 1582.
What did Pope Gregory do to the calendar?  Before 1582 the 
Julian calendar had been in effect, instituted by Julius Ceasar 
about 46 B.C. and named after him.  But the Julian calendar had 
calculated the length of the year as 365 1/4 days, and the year 
is actually eleven minutes less than 365 1/4 days.  Those eleven 
minutes accumulated, and by 1582 the numbering of the calendar 
was ten days out of harmony with the solar system.  Gregory 
simply dropped those ten days out of the numbering of the 
calendar.  It was Thursday, October 4, 1582, and the next day, 
Friday, should have been October 5.  But Gregory made it October 
15 instead, dropping exactly ten days to bring the calendar back 
into harmony with the heavenly bodies. 
Were the days of the week confused?  No.  Friday still followed 
Thursday, and Saturday still followed Friday.  The same seventh 
day remained, and the weekly cycle was not disturbed in the 
least.  When we keep the seventh day on Saturday, we are 
observing the same day Jesus kept, and He did it every week 
according to Luke 4:16.

3.  The third evidence for the true Sabbath is the most 
conclusive of all.  The Jewish people have been observing the 
seventh day from the time of Abraham, and they still keep it 
today.  Here is a whole nation--millions of individuals--who 
have been counting off time meticulously, week after week, 
calendar or no calendar, for thousands of years.  Could they 
have lost track?  Impossible.  The only way they could have lost 
a day would have been for the entire nation to have slept over 
an extra 24 hours and for no one ever to tell them about it 
afterwards.  
There has been no change or loss of the Sabbath since God made 
it in Genesis.  The origin of the week is found in the creation 
story.  There is no scientific or astronomical reason for 
measuring time in cycles of seven days.  It is an arbitrary 
arrangement of God and has been miraculously preserved for one 
reason--because the holy Sabbath day points to the creative 
power of the only true God.  It is a sign of His sovereignty 
over the world and over human life; a sign of creation and 
redemption.
Is this not the reason God will preserve Sabbathkeeping 
throughout eternity?  We read in Isaiah 66:22, 23:  "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."
The Sabbath is so precious to God that He will have His people 
observe it throughout all time to come in the beautiful new 
earth.  If it is so precious to Him, should it not be precious 
to us?  If we are going to keep it then, should we not keep it 
now?
In an age of false gods, of atheistic evolution, and traditions 
of men, the world needs the Sabbath more than ever as a test of 
our loyalty to the great Creator-God and a sign of our 
sanctification through His power.

4.  Proof number four lies in the fact that over one hundred 
languages of the earth use the word "Sabbath" for Saturday.  For 
example, the Spanish word for Saturday is "S bado," meaning 
Sabbath.  What does this prove?  It proves that when those 
hundred languages originated in the long, long ago, Saturday was 
recognized as the Sabbath day and was incorporated into the very 
name of the day.


The Sabbath Was Only a
Memorial of Deliverance
Out of Egypt

This strange idea is drawn from a single text in the Old 
Testament and is distorted to contradict many clear statements 
about the true origin of the Sabbath.  The text is found in 
Deuteronomy 5:14, 15:  "But the seventh day is the sabbath of 
the Lord thy God:  in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor 
thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy 
maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, 
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant 
and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.  And remember that 
thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy 
God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a 
stretched out arm:  therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to 
keep the sabbath day."
Some people draw from this text that God gave the Sabbath as a 
memorial of the Exodus from Egypt.  But the Genesis story of the 
making of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3) and the wording of the 
fourth commandment by God Himself (Exodus 20:11) reveals the 
Sabbath as a memorial of creation.
The key to understanding these two verses rests in the word 
"servant."  God said, "Remember that thou wast a servant in the 
land of Egypt."  And in the sentence before this one He reminds 
them "that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well 
as thou."  In other words, their experience in Egypt as servants 
would remind them to deal justly with their servants by giving 
them Sabbath rest.
In similar vein God had commanded, "And if a stranger sojourn 
with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him ... for ye were 
strangers in the land of Egypt."  Leviticus 19:33, 34.
It was not unusual for God to hark back to the Egyptian 
deliverance as an incentive to obey other commandments.  In 
Deuteronomy 24:17, 18, God said, "Thou shalt not pervert the 
judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a 
widow's raiment to pledge. ... Thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and 
the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence:  therefore I command thee 
to do this thing."
Neither the command to be just nor to keep the Sabbath was given 
to memorialize the Exodus, but God told them that His goodness 
in bringing them out of captivity constituted a strong 
additional reason for their dealing kindly with their servants 
on the Sabbath and treating justly the strangers and widows.
In the same way, God spoke to them in Leviticus 11:45, "For I am 
the Lord that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt. ... ye 
shall therefore be holy."  Surely no one would insist that 
holiness did not exist before the Exodus, or that it would be 
ever afterwards limited only to the Jews, to memorialize their 
deliverance.

Keep Sunday in Honor 
of the Resurrection

It is true that Jesus rose on the first day of the week, but 
nowhere is there the slightest intimation in the Bible for 
anyone to keep that day holy.  The basis for Sabbathkeeping is 
the direct handwritten command of God.
Many wonderful events occurred on certain days of the week, but 
we have no command to keep them holy.  Jesus died for our sins 
on Friday.  That is probably the most significant event in all 
of recorded history.  It marks the moment my death sentence was 
commuted and my salvation assured.  But not one Bible text hints 
that we should observe this day of such great significance.
It was a dramatic moment when Jesus rose from the grave on that 
Sunday morning, but there is not a scintilla of biblical 
evidence that we should observe it in honor of the resurrection.  
Not one instance of Sunday observance has been found in the 
recorded Scriptures.
There is, of course, a memorial of the resurrection commanded in 
the Bible, but it is not Sundaykeeping.  Paul wrote:  "Therefore 
we are buried with him by baptism into death:  that like as 
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
even so we also should walk in newness of life."  Romans 6:4.
Baptism is the memorial of Christ's death, burial and 
resurrection.  Those who believe that Sunday observance honors 
His resurrection cite the upper room meeting of the disciples on 
the same day He arose from the grave.  To them that gathering 
was to celebrate His resurrection.  But when we read the Bible 
record of the event, we discover that the circumstances were 
quite different.  Luke tells us that, even though the disciples 
were confronted with the eyewitness story of Mary Magdalene, 
they "believed not."  "After that he appeared in another form 
unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.  
And they went and told it unto the residue:  neither believed 
they them.  Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at 
meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of 
heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after 
he was risen."  Mark 16:12-14.
Obviously, none of those upper room disciples believed that He 
was raised, so they could not have been joyously celebrating the 
resurrection.  John explains their reason for being together in 
these words:  "The doors were shut where the disciples were 
assembled for fear of the Jews."  John 20:19.
Thus, we have examined the major arguments used against the 
observance of God's holy Sabbath day.  Not one of the objections 
provides a trace of evidence that God ever changed His mind 
about the Sabbath.  When He wrote the word "remember" into the 
fourth commandment, it was in reference to the same seventh day 
that appears on our wall calendar.  Neither men nor demons can 
diminish the validity of that eternal moral law.
May God grant each one of us the courage to honor the Sabbath 
commandment as heaven's special test of our love and loyalty.  
As we have discovered, when Jesus returns, we will keep that 
same Sabbath with Him, ages without end.  Even so, come, Lord 
Jesus.

If you found this topic interesting, we would love to hear from 
you. We have bible studies as well as video and audio tape 
libraries. Send for our free catalog of study materials.
	Amazing Facts
	P.O. Box 680
	Frederick, MD 21701
Please let us know that you found this sermon on a bbs.
