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Sunday is NOT the Sabbath! (continued)

Yeshua(Jesus) and the Sabbath Day.

Ask most any Christian what day of the week Yeshua (Jesus) rose from the grave and they would answer that it was a Sunday. For nearly 20 centuries the resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus) has been celebrated on Sunday. How do they come up with the idea that resurrection day was Sunday?

Mat 28:1 In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

Mark 16:2 And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came to the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

Luke 24:1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
Luke 24:2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

Yeshua (Jesus) lay in the tomb on the Sabbath, and the Sabbath ended at sundown, (as does every day according to the Bible).

The women came to the tomb at dawn the day following (or "the first day of the week") and discovered that the tomb was already empty. Look at most calendars. Sunday is normally shown as the first day of the week, and Saturday as the last day of the week. (Recently some business calendars are being printed with Monday as the first day, confusing the issue somewhat.) Virtually any dictionary will confirm Sunday is the first day of the week. 

So Sunday keepers seem to have no problem precisely identifying the day of the week the resurrection occurred on,** but when it comes to the seventh-day Sabbath, suddenly there is doubt???  (Sounds more to me like we have a large body of folk just following what they've been taught without doing what Scripture says to do:  Prove all things 1Th 5:21) 

**(Webmaster's NOTE: Christ actually rose from death and the grave at the end of the Sabbath day... See three days and three nights!),

Yeshua knew exactly which day was the genuine seventh-day Sabbath -

Luke 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

Yeshua (Jesus) Himself was a keeper of the seventh-day Sabbath. Now, if the Jews had somehow lost track of the Sabbath day since the time of Moses, Jesus would have corrected them, but this was not necessary, since they were already observing the right day. As this establishes a firm reference point in history, it remains for the skeptic to try and prove that the Jews and the rest of the world somehow collectively lost track of the day in the 2000 years since the time of Christ, a period which is very well documented.


The Gregorian Calendar Reform

Sometimes people will say the calendar reform in the Middle Ages must have altered the weekdays as we know them, so we cannot be sure which day is the seventh day. Again people that think this have not researched the issue.

The calendar reform of 1582 was established by Pope Gregory XIII because the previous method for calculating leap years had moved the date of the vernal equinox from March 21 in 325 A.D. to March 11 in 1582. (The Julian calendar commenced the 1st of January of the 46th year before the birth of Christ, and the 708th from the foundation of Rome). This was important to the Catholic church because Easter (Webmaster-also a wrong day of worship) was observed by Catholics on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring after the vernal equinox. So Easter was gradually creeping further and further (earlier and earlier) away from the time of year set by the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

To correct this perceived problem Pope Gregory XIII decreed that Thursday October 4, 1582 would be followed not by the 5th but by Friday October 15, 1582. He jumped the calendar 10 days numerically, but did not change the weekly cycle. So that this correction would be maintained, he then decreed that leap years would occur whenever the year was divisible by four, and centennial years would be leap years that were divisible by 400. During a leap year, one day is added to the month of February, as a correction. This method of calendar keeping was gradually adopted across Europe, and the world, and is nearly universal today.

Cardinal Gibbons on Sunday

"... is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But, you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."

Source: The Faith of Our Fathers, by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, originally published in 1876, republished and Copyright 1980 by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., pages 72-73.

Summa Theologica

In the New Law the observance of the Lord's day (Sunday) took the place of the observance of the Sabbath (Saturday), not by virtue of the precept (of God) but by the institution of the Church and the custom (Tradition) of Christian people.

Source: Thomas Aquainas SMT SS Q[122] A[4] R.O. 4 Para.

Convert's Catechism

"Ques. - Which is the Sabbath day?

"Ans. - Saturday is the Sabbath day.

"Ques. - Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

"Ans. - We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."

Source: The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, written by Reverend Peter Geiermann, C.S.R., and blessed by Pope Pius X on the 25th of January 1910, Second edition, page 50.

The Council of Laodicea

The Council of Laodicea in Phrygia Pacatiana, (343-381) was a local, Eastern, Greek-speaking synod, and the canons referring to the Sabbath or Sunday/Lord's day are listed here:

LAODICEA, CANON 16. - The Gospels are to be read on Sabbath, with the other Scriptures [apparently at Communion services; see canon 49, below].

LAODICEA, CANON 29. - Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring 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 from Christ.

LAODICEA, CANON 49. - During Lent, the Bread must not be offered except on the Sabbath Day and on the Lord's Day only.

LAODICEA, CANON 51. - The nativities of Martyrs [actually, the death days, on which martyrs were considered to have been born to eternal life] are not to be celebrated in Lent, but commemorations of the holy Martyrs are to be made on the Sabbaths and Lord's days. (Note:  the Torah specifically forbids mourning and fasting on Sabbath)

CATECHISM OF POPE PIUS X

The Third Commandment

1 Q. What does the Third Commandment: Remember you keep holy the Sabbath day, command us to do?

A. The Third Commandment: Remember you keep holy the Sabbath day, commands us to honour God by acts of worship on festivals.

2 Q. What are festivals?

A. In the Old Law they were Saturdays and certain other days regarded as specially solemn by the Jews; in the New Law they are Sundays and other festivals instituted by the Church.

3 Q. Why is Sunday sanctified instead of Saturday in the New Law?

A. Sunday, which means the Lord's Day, was substituted for Saturday, because it was on that day that our Lord rose from the dead.

Note:  Sun day does NOT mean Lord's Day.  Sun Day is the holiday of the Roman sun-god "Sol Inviticus.

Doctrinal Catechism

Q. Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?

A. 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.

Source: A Doctrinal Catechism, by Rev. Stephen Keenan, Imprimatur by John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, Copyright 1876 by T. W. Strong, page 174.


Anglican Archbishop Declares Tradition as Sunday's Origin

TORONTO, Oct. 27 (BUP).-Rev. Philip Carrington, Anglican Archbishop of Quebec, sent local clergymen into a huddle today by saying outright that there was nothing to support Sunday being kept holy. Carrington defiantly told a church meeting in this city of straight-laced protestantism that tradition, not the Bible, had made Sunday the day of worship. He quoted the biblical commandment which said the seventh day should be one of rest, and then stated: "That is Saturday." "Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday," the Archbishop told a hushed, still audience. Local parsons read his comments today with set, determined looks. They refused comment.

Source: News Item, Albertan (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), Oct. 28, 1949.


The Catholic Christian Instructed.

[p. 202]
Q. What are the days which the Church commands to be kept holy?

A. 1st, The Sunday, or the Lord's day, which we observe by apostolical tradition, instead of the Sabbath.

(Ed. note: reading the next four questions and answers, it should be a source of amazement to you how people will believe a lie if it's repeated enough times; even when the truth is obvious and available. Acts 15 clearly shows that the "Apostolic tradition" was for the Apostles and believers in Yeshua to meet on Sabbath in the synagogues. )

Q. What warrant have you for keeping the Sunday, preferable to the ancient Sabbath, which was the Saturday?

A. We have for it the authority of the Catholic Church, and apostolical tradition.

Q. Does the scripture any where command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath?

A. The scripture commands us to hear the Church, St. Matt. xviii. 17. St. Luke x. 16, and to hold fast the traditions of the Apostles, 2 Thess. ii. 15, but the scripture does not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath.

[p. 204]
Q. What was the reason why the weekly Sabbath was changed from the Saturday to the Sunday?

A. Because our Lord fully accomplished the work of our redemption by rising from the dead on a Sunday, and by sending down the Holy Ghost on a Sunday: as therefore the work of our redemption was a greater work than that of our creation, the primitive Church thought the day, in which this work was completely finished, was more worthy [of] her religious observation than that in which God rested from the creation, and should be properly called the Lord's day.

So let's make sure  we've got this right now. GOD blessed and sanctified the Sabbath and told us to remember it and keep it holy but this bunch of HIS created beings is saying ...."No, we'll tell YOU how it's going to be..." and all the world followed after them.....

Q. But has the Church a power to make any alterations in the commandments of God?

A. The commandments of God, as far as they contain his eternal law, are unalterable and indispensable; but as to whatever was only ceremonial, they cease to oblige, since the Mosaic law was abrogated by Christ's death.

Even the Catholic Church admits that the Word does NOT say that the law was not abrogated (replaced) at the cross but then they turn right around and say it was???? And then they say that the commandment obliges us to set aside some part of our time, but that's NOT what the commandment says as you just read.

Hence, as far as the commandment obliges us to set aside some part of our time for the worship and service of our Creator, it is an unalterable and unchangeable precept of the eternal law, in which the Church cannot dispense: but for as much as it prescribes the seventh day in particular for this purpose, it is no more than a ceremonial precept of the old law, which obliges not Christians. And therefore, instead of the seventh day, and other festivals appointed in the old law, the Church has prescribed the Sundays and Holy Days to be set apart for God's worship; and these we are now obliged to keep in consequence of God's commandment, instead of the ancient Sabbath.

Source: The Catholic Christian Instructed in the Sacraments, Sacrifice, Ceremonies, and Observances of the Church, by the Right Rev. Dr. Richard Challoner, published in Baltimore in 1852 by John Murphy & Co., pp. 202, 204.

Rebuilding A Lost Faith

Protestants often deride the authority of Church tradition, and claimed to be directed by the Bible only; yet they, too, have been guided by customs of the ancient Church, which find no warrant in the Bible, but rest on Church tradition only!

A striking instance of this is the following:-The first positive command in the Decalogue is to "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy," and this precept was enforced by the Jews for thousands of years. But the Sabbath Day, the observance of which God commanded, was our Saturday. Yet who among either Catholics or Protestants, except a sect or two, like the "Seventh Day Baptists," ever keep that commandment now? None. Why is this? The Bible, which Protestants claim to obey exclusively, gives no authorization for the substitution of the first day of the week for the seventh. On what authority, therefore, have they done so? Plainly on the authority of that very Catholic Church which they abandoned, and whose traditions they condemn.

Source: John L. Stoddard, Rebuilding a Lost Faith By An American Agnostic (New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1826), p. 80.


The Observance of Sunday and Civil Laws for its Enforcement

[pg. 139]
Strange as it may seem, the State, in passing laws for the due sanctification of Sunday, is unwittingly acknowledging the authority of the Catholic Church, and carrying out more or less faithfully its prescriptions.

The Sunday, as a day of the week set apart for the obligatory public worship of Almighty God, to be sanctified by a suspension of all servile labor, trade, and worldly avocations and by exercises of devotion, is purely a creation of the Catholic Church.

It is not the Jewish Sabbath; it is, in fact, entirely distinct from it, and not governed by the enactments of the Mosaic law. It is part and parcel of the system of the Catholic Church, as absolutely as Christian marriage is or any other her sacraments, her festivals and fasts, her days of joy and mourning, her indulgences and her jubilees.

[pg. 149]
The Catholic Church created the Sunday and made the very regulations which have come down on the statue-books, and she still constantly, from her pulpits, her catechists' chairs, and the confessional, calls on her faithful to obey them, to sanctify the day, and refrain from all that desecrates it.

[pg. 152]
For ages all Christian nations looked to the Catholic Church, and, as we have seen, the various states enforced by law her ordinances as to worship and cessation of labor on Sunday. Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the Church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath, with the Jews and the Seventh-Day Baptists. For their present practice Protestants in general have no authority but that of a Church which they disown, and there cannot be a greater inconsistency than theirs in asking the state to enforce the Sunday laws.

Source: The American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883, The Observance of Sunday and Civil Laws for its Enforcement, published in Philadelphia by Hardy and Mahony Publishers and Proprietors, pages 139, 149, 152.

To Tell You the Truth.

All of us believe many things in regard to religion that we do not find in the Bible. For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday.  Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the Church outside the Bible.

Source: "To Tell You The Truth," The Catholic Virginian, Vol. 22, No. 49 (Oct. 3, 1947).

Things Catholics Are Asked About

Some non-Catholics object to Purgatory because there is no specific mention of it in Scripture. There is no specific mention of the word Sunday in Scripture. The Sabbath is mentioned, but Sabbath means Saturday. Yet Christians of almost all denominations worship on Sunday, not Saturday. The Jews observe Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday... The Church made the Bible, the Bible did not make the Church.  Now the Church which gave us the Bible, instituted, by God's authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible was made.  We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday.

Source: Martin J. Scott, S.J., Litt.D., Things Catholics Are Asked About, p. 136, Copyright 1927 by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York.

Basic Catholic Catechism

Third Commandment: "Remember to keep holy the Lord's day."

1. Sundays and Holy Days: Mass Obligation

In Old Testament times, this commandment required keeping the Sabbath (Saturday), holy and a day of rest. The day was moved to Sunday by the authority Christ gave to His Church, to commemorate the Resurrection of Our Lord and Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles.

Basic Catholic Catechism, By Fr. William G. Most, Copyright 1990

Catholicism and Fundamentalism

After all, fundamentalists meet for worship on Sunday, yet there is no evidence in the Bible that corporate worship was to be made on Sundays. The Jewish Sabbath, or day of rest, was, of course, Saturday. It was the Catholic Church that decided Sunday should be the day of worship for Christians, in honor of the Resurrection.

Source: Catholicism and Fundamentalism, by Karl Keating, copyright 1988 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco, bearing the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur of the Catholic Church, page 38.


So dear reader, you should no longer have any doubt that not only is Sunday is the first day of week, and that nowhere in the Bible is Sunday blessed, sanctified or commanded by God as a day of weekly worship. The Catholic Church itself has told you that it was THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH who has "done away with" the keeping of all the Biblical Sabbaths as God has commanded.

If you claim to be Protestant, and acknowledge that the Bible, not the Roman Catholic Church is your only ruler of truth, then on what basis will you continue to worship on Sunday? 

It was no coincidence that you were led to read this webpage. You need to make your decision about what you are going to do about the "Sunday Issue," HERE, NOW, TODAY!

14 Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve you the Lord. 15 And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,

choose you this day whom
ye will serve;

whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Jos 24:14,15 KJV)

You have seen from the Catholic Church's own records and words that they took onto themselves, the right to change God's laws with regard to times of worship.

25 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: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. 26 But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it to the end. (Dan 7:25)

19 And Joshua said to the people, you cannot serve the Lord: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.
20 If you forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good. (Jos 24:19-20)

The choice is yours and you must make it. If you cast aside the only day the Bible sanctifies in perpetuity by the Word of God and replace it with a day authorized ONLY by the word of Roman Catholic Tradition, if you keep the "Beast-Days" and not the other Biblical Shabbats (Feast-Days), then in spite of your claim of Protestantism, you are essentially following after the image of the Beast and are a Roman Catholic on this matter.

So which authority do you acknowledge, the Word of God that commands Sabbath worship or the tradition of the Catholic Church which commands Sunday, first day and "Holy Days of Obligation" (easter, xmas etc.) worship? On that final day, YOU will be the one that stands before the Giver of the Law; not your pastor or your parents or your priest....just YOU. What will HE say to you?

Notice who will enter into the Kingdom...

21 Not every one that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven (Mat 7:21 KJV)

Will you do HIS will or the will of the Popes of the Roman Catholic Church? Will He say to you:

22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity. (Mat 7:22-23 KJV)

choose you this day whom you will serve;
(Jos 24:15 KJV)

End of Unknown Author's Article

Sunday vs Sabbath continued...

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