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by Wayne Blank
The Only Day Of The Week That Is Holy
The Sabbath Day, and only the Sabbath Day, was made Holy by God at the time of Creation.
"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all His work which He had done in creation." (Genesis 2:1-3 RSV) (see The Seven Days Of Creation)
The Sabbath Day is God's Holy Day; it is not the invention, or property of, Jews or Sabbath-keeping Christians. It is God's Holy Day:
"If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My Holy Day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the Holy Day of The Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways [see I Did It My Way...], or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in The Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of The Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 58:13-14 RSV)
The Sabbath Day is an identifying sign; it identifies the only true God, the Creator, and it identifies His true people (although Sabbath-keeping alone is not enough - there are many who are Sabbath keepers who are not The Elect):
"I gave them My statutes and showed them My ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. Moreover I gave them My Sabbaths, as a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I The Lord sanctify them." (Ezekiel 20:11-12 RSV)
The Sabbath Day is not the "Jewish Sabbath," it is God's Sabbath. Jesus Christ, the greatest "Christian" of all, observed the Sabbath Day, and only the Sabbath Day (the pagan Roman "sun day" did already exist at that time, but Jesus Christ, and the apostles, and the early church, were all Sabbath keepers - they would never have observed the heathen "sun-worship day"):
"And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught." (Mark 1:21 RSV)"And on the Sabbath He began to teach in the synagogue; and many who heard Him were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to Him? What mighty works are wrought by His hands!" (Mark 6:2 RSV)
Christians continued to observe the Sabbath after Christ's sacrifice:
"As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. And when the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them and urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered together to hear the word of God." (Acts 13:42-44 RSV)
The seventh day never stopped being God's Sabbath. It has always been observed by Christians who base their Christianity on the Word of God, the Holy Bible, and it will always be observed into the future. After The Return Of Jesus Christ, all people, of all nations, will learn (the easy way, or the hard way - their choice, and yours) to observe God's weekly Sabbath:
"For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me, says The Lord; so shall your descendants and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, says The Lord." (Isaiah 66:22-23 RSV)
Fact Finder: How did the pagan Roman empire bring about the corrupt change from God's true and only Sabbath Day to the Roman "venerable day of the sun" - a change that has been blindly accepted by generation after generation of Christian-professing people ever since?
See Sun Worship
