Why should Christians worship on the seventh day?

Why Should Christians Worship on the Seventh Day?

Introduction

Which day is the Christian day of worship? Is it important which day we keep? These are questions I struggled with when I was first called by God. It is a test commandment in that it required me to go against the grain of society. I recall vividly my supervisor; his name was Don, a tough guy & former Marine. I needed to ask permission to be able to leave early on Friday since the sun set around 4:20 pm in Seattle in December. According to scripture sunset is when the Sabbath (seventh day) or any day for that matter begins and the old day ends. (See Lev 23:32). I told him I was willing to make up the time by coming in earlier on those Fridays when that happened. He could not understand why, even though I carefully explained my reasons several times, in different ways which were based on my belief in God’s word. He finally relented after a very long persistent discussion but his parting comment was: “I believe in religion, but I can’t see how it should run your life.” His comment has stuck with me ever since.

Don was wrong; religion or better put; conviction should “run my life” because within me, or for that matter any human, there is no way to know right, or righteousness, from evil, or truth from a lie. God is the author of truth.

John 17:17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

We are capable of deceiving ourselves as shown in Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

This is because truth is external to our minds, not internal, we are not born with some natural sense of morality, but none the less we all have been led by Satan to think we have. In Rev 12:9 God calls Satan a being who “…deceives the whole world…” That is a profound statement, the last time I checked everyone is a part of the world. So we see that apart from God the natural tendency is to follow the deceit disseminated by the father of lying as Christ labeled Satan in the book of John:

John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

Fortunately the truth is that the God ordained day of worship for all humanity, the Sabbath, is an invention of our Creator, not of man. It is one of the very first things he did for his sons and daughters immediately after he finished his creation as shown in his word. Doesn’t it make sense that we understand a special day in which God was personally involved and use it as he intended? Is it something a Christian should know, understand and observe?

The Sabbath is the first thing which comes to mind for true Christians who argue against the popular false belief that the Law, the Ten Commandments were done away; nullified with Christ’s sacrifice. The Sabbath is specified in the fourth commandment of the Law, but it was created centuries before the Law was given to Moses. It was an important part of the rules of life laid out from the beginning of humankind. We read of its establishment in the book of Genesis.

Gen 2:2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

Once the act of physical creation was finished he chose to “rest” with intent, not that he was tired but because he was done, and he purposefully did three important actions.

Gen 2:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

The three important concepts:

1) He rested, ceased work as a purposeful act.

2) The seventh day, the Sabbath, was blessed by its creator.

3) The Sabbath was sanctified by him.

We know from the New Testament book of John that the being who became Christ was the one known as the Lord in the Old Testament the one who in Genesis rested from his work of creating all things. I will not go into detailed proof of that statement except to cite John 1:1-10 where that fact is plainly stated. He is also called Lord of the Sabbath in Mat 12:8. The fact that he created that special time called the Sabbath and is the Lord and Master of it is very important.

Mar 2:28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

Two questions come to mind in observing what most professing Christian churches do, which is celebrate Sunday as the “Sabbath”. The word Sabbath means seventh, the seventh day of the week, not the first day or Sunday as the Romans named it in honor of the Day of the Sun. Begging to be answered are:

1) Did Jesus or God the Father change the day of rest to another day of the week?

2) Why would they do that?

To insure that we were set straight on that purpose and our intended use of the time he magnified the reason for the Sabbath in Mathew.

Mar 2:27 Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

The Jews had corrupted the keeping of the Sabbath with a long list of do’s and don’ts so Jesus set the record straight. The time was set aside for our benefit not as a burdensome punishment.

Sunday Worship

Where did this practice of Sunday worship for Christians come from? Is it found in the Bible? One scripture used to try and support Sunday worship is in the book of Acts:

Act 20:7 Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.

The scripture interprets itself; this is describing a meal they were having together, a farewell dinner since Paul was leaving the next day, this was not a worship service. How can a commandment (and there are only ten of them) be changed by eating a meal together on the first day of the week, Sunday? It makes no sense at all. There is no explicit pronouncement anywhere in scripture that changes the day of rest to any other day of the week.

Changing the official day of “rest” to Sunday is an invention of the Roman Church made official by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 321 A.D. in an effort to be separate from Judaism. This political action has been perpetuated by the protestors, or Protestants - those who came out of the Roman Church during the Reformation in protest of official church teachings. They rejected other heretical teachings of the Roman Church but left Sunday worship in tact. Nowhere in the Bible does God grant humans the authority to change his Law; the Ten Commandments, and the forth commandment is a part of that law.

Why Change the Sabbath?

“Why?” is the fundamental question. Christians or anyone who rests on the Sabbath are tested concerning their willingness to obey God as shown in the example given in the introduction. You can read of the test of ancient Israel concerning the Sabbath prior to them receiving the Law at Sinai. (See Exodus 16:4-30) The one day in seven is important to God and he needs to know if anyone professing to follow his ways is serious in their pursuit. Are they in harmony with his lifestyle, his way of thinking?

What purpose would be served by changing the day of rest from the Sabbath (seventh day) to Sunday (the first day) of the week? Remember Christ said in Mark 2:28 that he is “Lord of the Sabbath”, not “Lord of Sunday” or “Lord of the first day of the week”, as the day was called during the times when the New Testament was recorded. Consider that the names of the days of the week we now use are a Roman invention to name them after the Sun & planets or gods of their anti-Christian mythology. Consider also that the day of rest was both blessed and sanctified by the one who goes by Christ, the Word, and the Lord God of the Old Covenant as clearly shown in the first chapter of the book of John. This was done at creation. Why change it after thousands of years of observance prior to making the covenant with Israel? Why do it in stealth? Shouldn’t such a monumental event as revising one of the Ten Commandments require a grand and unmistakable announcement as powerful as the Ex 20 account of re-stating them originally?

The simple fact is; the Sabbath is still the Sabbath, observed on the seventh day no matter how much humans reason around it. There is no scriptural, or for that matter logical reason to change the day of observance and therefore there is no reason to believe it has been changed by God.

Future of the Sabbath

It is foretold in prophesy that the Sabbath will be kept by everyone on earth in the future, after the return of the Messiah.

Isa 66:23 "And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from sabbath to sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me," says the LORD.

Again in scripture we see Jesus when he talked with his disciples predicted a future event based on the Sabbath:

Mat 24:20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. vs: 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.

How are these prophesies possible if the Sabbath day has been changed to the first day of the week? Answer; it hasn’t been changed; the Sabbath is still the seventh day. Someone is lying and you can be certain it is not Christ.

Conclusion

Since my original calling by God to become a Christian, and through reading and studying, I have proved that the Sabbath - as well as the rest of the Law of God - is required to be kept by Christians. In fact, as shown in the scriptures, God calls anyone a liar if they claim to know him and do not observe his commandments, all of his commandments including the fourth commandment.

1Jn 2:4 He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

Not that by keeping the Law we earn our forgiveness, but keeping God’s Law along with our change of thinking & actions are basic requirements in order to be forgiven and ultimately for being considered to be allowed to enter into the kingdom of God as an immortal. (See Rom 6:23 & Eph 2:8) It all starts with showing love toward God by our obedience.

In many years of observing God’s Sabbath I can truthfully say that it has never been a burden as reinforced in the first letter of John:

1John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

I have never felt that I “missed out” on events which were held on the Sabbath day, and then blamed God. It isn’t God’s fault that humans choose to disobey and do things not proper for the day that he blessed and sanctified for our benefit. God knew we needed a day of rest and rejuvenation lasting from sunset on Friday to sunset on the Sabbath. Living, and making a living, diverts our attention to physical matters. While a Christian should be studying and reading the word of God each day, the Sabbath gives us added time to refocus on God, & to be with his people at church Sabbath services and to hear a message that he has inspired to be given for our benefit.

The huge advantage of being with other Christians as we gather to worship God can not be overstated. It is a God ordained time to assemble & hear messages from the ministry which are focused on living a Christian life as we struggle in a satanic influence society. We try to live God’s way and it is so good to talk with people facing similar challenges.

We all have the same problem; immersion in a world run by Satan. It rubs off on a person to the point that it takes most of the Sabbath to unwind our mind back to true reality.

God is so wise and loving that he knew we would have these kinds of problems so he created the Sabbath for us.

Mar 2:27 And He said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Not as a burden but as a blessing. We should be very grateful he did so because without dedicated time to realign our minds back to true values we will drift away from his truth. Isn’t it time to reject false, unsubstantiated beliefs and follow what the Messiah and his disciples did and what true Christians of this era do and that is keep his Sabbath? In doing this you will see that the rewards & blessings are tremendous. LT