by

Stanley Harris

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ died on the cross to magnify the law and make it honorable. But someone is guilty of tampering with God's perfect law. Someone has tried to change the Sabbath commandment, and much of the world has been deceived by this. Just think of the enormity of this crime! If the law could have been changed, Jesus need not have died on Calvary.

There are some who believe that the Sabbath was not in force and that it did not exist until the Jews appeared as a nation. But let us go back to the beginning of the Bible at the time God created the earth. It says in Gen. 2: 1-3: "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 he rested on the seventh day from all 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."

God created this world 2,000 years before there was a Jew. Richard Baxter says: "Why should God begin two thousand years after to give man a Sabbath upon the reason of his rest from the creation of it, if he had never called man to that commemoration before?" Practical Works, Vol. 3, p. 774. It is unbelievable that God would make the Sabbath and then wait 2,000 years until the first Jew came along to tell him that the day was made for him 2,000 years before.

Long before the Jews existed as a nation Abraham was keeping God's commandments and obeying His Sabbath. We read in Gen. 26:5: "Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." If the Ten Commandment Law did not exist until given to the Jews, then how could anyone be guilty of murder, stealing, or adultery, and the other sins that are forbidden in the commandments? And how could Abraham keep God's commandments if he had never heard of them?

Alexander Campbell, the founder of the Christian Church, supports the view that the Sabbath has been kept ever since creation. In his Popular Lectures, pp. 283, 284, we read: "Heaven left not this fact, the creation . . . to be gathered from abstract reasoning, vitiated tradition, ingenious analogies, or plausible conjectures, but from a monumental institution which was as universal as the annals of time, as the birth of nations, and as the languages spoken by mortals--an institution too, which, notwithstanding its demands, not only of THE SEVENTH PART OF ALL TIME, but of THE SEVENTH DAY IN UNINTERRUPTED SUCCESSION, was celebrated from the creation to the deluge, during the deluge, and after the deluge, till the giving of the law."

In The Evidences of Christianity, also by Alexander Campbell, p. 302, we read: "THE SEVENTH DAY WAS OBSERVED FROM ABRAHAM'S TIME, NAY, FROM CREATION." The reason why so many have forgotten God is that they have forgotten His holy day. God said: "Remember the Sabbath." But what God said to remember, nearly the whole world has forgotten.

Again from Alexander Campbell, Popular Lectures, p. 284, we find this statement: "The humblest pillar, in honor of the dead, has 'IN MEMORY OF' inscribed either in fact or by circumstances, upon its front, and so reads the fourth principle of the everlasting ten." We are to remember that in six days God created the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. So we are to remember the seventh day to keep it holy. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation and was given to man at that time.

The Children of Israel kept the Sabbath even before God spoke His Ten Commandment Law to them at Sinai. In the 16th chapter of the Book of Exodus we find that while they were journeying in the wilderness the Lord provided manna for them six days, but on the seventh day THERE WAS NONE. For forty years, as the Children of Israel journeyed in the wilderness, God pointed out His true Sabbath. On 2,080 consecutive Sabbaths the Lord revealed by mighty miracles, that the SEVENTH DAY WAS THE SABBATH.

When Jesus came to this world, He kept the Sabbath that He had made in the Garden of Eden. In Luke 4:16 it tells us that: ". . . AS HIS CUSTOM WAS, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read." If you and I had lived in the days of Christ, we would have seen Him in His home village of Nazareth, going to church every Sabbath day.

It was Christ's custom to keep the Sabbath. The Bible says: "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Heb. 13.8. If Christ kept the seventh-day Sabbath, then it is good enough for me. In I Peter 2:21 we read: ". . . leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps." Should we not still follow in His steps and keep the same Sabbath that He kept? Jesus made the Sabbath for all mankind, and the Sabbath has been kept by God's people since the beginning of the world.

But many believe that either Christ or His apostles changed the Sabbath to another day. Doctor Lyman Abbott, in an editorial published in the Christian Union, June 26, 1890, said: "The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh is absolutely without any authority." Dr. Abbott was a diligent Bible student, and I agree with him in his conclusion on this subject.

As Jesus taught the people one day, they asked regarding the Sabbath. "And be said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:27, 28. Some say that the Sabbath was made FOR THE JEWS, but Jesus says that the Sabbath was made FOR MAN. Now if the Jew is the only one who is called a man, then he is the only one who can marry a woman, because the Bible says that woman was made for man. This, of course, is ridiculous.

William Miller says: "The moral law was never given to the Jews as a people exclusively; but they were for a season the keepers of it in charge. And through them the law, oracles, and testimony have been handed down to us." Life and Views, p. 161. Let us not reject the Sabbath because some say it is Jewish. Let us not forget that Jesus was a Jew, and if we are going to reject the Sabbath because it is Jewish, then we must also reject Christ. The Bible is a Jewish Book, so if we reject the Sabbath because it is Jewish, we must also reject the Bible.

Not only was it the custom of Jesus to go to church every week on the Sabbath, but it was also the custom of His disciples after He returned to heaven. In Acts 17:2 it tells us that Paul kept the Sabbath: "And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures."

Christ intended that His followers should keep the Sabbath after His departure from this world. For when Jesus foretold the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 A.D., He entreated His followers: "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day." Matt. 24:20. Christ entreated His followers to pray that they would not have to break the Sabbath even after His return to His father in heaven.

Not only did the disciples keep the Sabbath 39 years after Jesus had died and returned to heaven, but they continued calling the seventh day of the week "the Sabbath day." Writing under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, Luke says: "But when they had departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on THE SABBATH DAY and sat down." Acts 13:14. Now this was written fourteen years after Jesus had returned to heaven, and Luke, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, still calls the day that was kept in the synagogues THE SABBATH DAY.

In the prize book of the American Sunday-School Union A. E. Waffle says: "Up to the time of Christ's death, no change had been made in the day . . . So far as the record shows, they (the apostles) did not . . . give any explicit command enjoining the abandonment of the seventh day Sabbath and its observance on the first day of the week." The Lord's Day, pp. 186-188. Diligent Bible students have never found any Bible text that even infers that such a change was to be made.

The Sabbath can be traced from creation to Abraham, and from Abraham to the Children of Israel, and on down to the time of Jesus Christ, and then to the disciples. Even through the "Dark Ages" there were Sabbath-keepers. And today there are still many who keep God's true and ONLY Sabbath day. Furthermore, Sabbath-keeping, we are told in the Bible, will be continued in the new earth.

In Isa. 66:22, 23 we read: "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 me, saith the Lord," Think of it, Friends, we shall come to God's throne each Sabbath to worship Him! If we are going to keep the Sabbath in heaven, the SAME SABBATH that Jesus MADE, and KEPT when He was here on earth, then we ought to begin to keep it now so we will know how to keep it when we get to heaven.

Some people say, "But I keep the Lord's day." Well, dear Friends, if you keep the Lord's day, you WILL keep the Sabbath of the Lord. In Rev. 1:10 John the Revelator says: "I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day . . ." He does not say what day that is, but the Bible tells us that the Lord's day is the Sabbath. In Mark 2:28 Jesus said: "Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath." In Ex. 20:10 it tells us: "But the SEVENTH DAY is the sabbath of the Lord thy God . . ." Then there's no question but that Saturday, the seventh day, is the Lord's Day.

Now who was the first to call Sunday the Lord's Day? Well, let us read from Lucium, a Catholic historian: "In the year 325 Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, 314 to 337 A.D., officially changed the title of the first day, calling it the Lord's day." Historia Ecciesiastica, p. 739. Surely, then, it was the anti-christ who first called Sunday the first day of the week the Lord's day--NOT GOD. God says that the seventh day is the Lord's day.

Some people say that they do not know which day is the seventh day. Edgar Lucien Larkin, of Mt. Lowe observatory in Pasadena, California, says: "Our days, weeks, months and years only exist as units of measurement in computing the unerring revolutions of the heavenly orbs. LOST OR CHANGED TIME WOULD BE INSTANTLY DETECTED by the modern astronomer. In letters to W. Hitchcock Bradley, August 25, 1920. It is strange that everybody seems to know which day is the first day of the week, but when it comes to the seventh day they have difficulty determining what day IT is!

We read in Mark 15:42, 43: "And now when the even was come, because it was the PREPARATION, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathaea . . . went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body of Jesus." This reveals to us that Jesus Christ died on the preparation day, or Friday. Friday is the day before Saturday, or the Sabbath, as the Bible tells us.

In Luke 23:54-56 we read: "And that day was the preparation, and the SABBATH DREW ON. And the women also. . . 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." In these verses it is very plain that the Lord Jesus rested in the tomb on that Sabbath day.

In Luke 24:1 we are told: "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 certain others with them." So Jesus as well as all His followers rested on the Sabbath. The disciples came to the tomb on Sunday to anoint Him and found the tomb empty.

In Mark 16:1, 2 it is recorded thus: "And when the sabbath was past . . . And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun." So Christ rose early on the first day of the week, or on Sunday, WHEN THE SABBATH WAS PAST.

Therefore, if Jesus died on Friday, and rose on Sunday, and the day in between is called the Sabbath, the day in which He rested in the tomb, surely there should be no question about WHICH DAY IS THE SABBATH. Is there anyone here who doesn't know what day comes between Friday and Sunday? All the world celebrates what is called Good Friday, in memory of Christ's death. And all the world celebrates Easter Sunday in memory of Christ's resurrection. Now the Bible tells us that the day in between is the Sabbath.

We sometimes hear it asked: "Is there any definite New Testament authority for keeping the Sabbath? Yes there is. In Heb. 4:3, 4, 7 it says: "For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said . . . For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. . . Again, he limiteth a certain day." You notice that the God of the Universe has limited the Sabbath to a certain day.

Again in Heb. 4:9, 11: "There remaineth therefore a REST to the people of God . . . Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." Paul warns us, in this text to enter into the rest of God, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief or DISOBEDIENCE, as the margin says. Dear Friends, it is not so much a matter of days as it is a matter of to whom we will yield our allegiance and obedience. Will we be among the majority who accept this great deception of the anti-christ, or will we cling to the commandments of God?

There are millions of people tonight who are wiping their feet on God's Holy Day. They need to stop and consider this statement of God: "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord . . ." Isa. 58:13, 14. What a pity that so many are desecrating God's holy day, literally wiping their feet on the holy Sabbath that God has made for them.

Most of the great leaders of the religious groups of the world know that the seventh day and not Sunday is the Sabbath day. A Methodist minister admits this: "There is not on record any divine command issued to the apostles to change the Sabbath from the day on which it was held by the Jews, to the first day of the week." Watson's Theological Institutes, Vol. 2, p. 511. If this is what the Methodists teach, then I am surely in agreement with the Methodists.

Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ Church, says: "There is no divine testimony that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room of it." Washington, Pa., Reporter, Oct. 8, 1821. If Alexander Campbell believed that the Sabbath was not changed by divine authority, then I am in agreement with him, and a Campbellite, if you please.

Dr. J. S. Stone, an Episcopal, says: "If the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, why is there no mention of this in the new Testament? There is no precept enjoining, and no comment accrediting the change." Divine Rest, p. 142.

Rev. R. W. Dale, a Congregationalist minister says: "It is quite clear that, however rigidly or devoutly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath." The Ten Commandments, pp. 106, 107. If that is what the Congregationalists are teaching, I am surely in agreement with them.

Here is what the United Brethren say: "The obligation to obey the fourth commandment is as perpetual, binding, and universal, as it is to obey the first commandment . . , The Holy Scriptures alone teach the way, and the only way of salvation; we recognize no other standard. Confession of Faith, pp. 57, 58. If that is the way the United Brethren believe, then I am in agreement with them.

Dr. H. J. Flowers, of the Church of England, says: "In the New Testament the observance of Sunday as a day of rest, or indeed IN ANY PARTICULAR WAY, is not enforced by a single word or suggestion." Book of Sermons, p. 131.

Again we quote from Dr. Flowers: "The Sabbath is commanded to be kept on the seventh day. IT COULD NOT BE KEPT on any other day." Book of Sermons, p. 131.

Dr. Donald Fraser, of England, a Presbyterian, says: "There is not the slightest evidence that our Lord, or His apostles regarded or taught others to regard the first day of the week."

Again I quote from Dr. Fraser, the Presbyterian minister: "That the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week by SOME COMPETENT AUTHORITY is not, and cannot be proved . . . CHANGE OF THE DAY? PREPOSTEROUS!" If that is what the Presbyterians teach, then I am happy to be in agreement with the Presbyterians.

The Baptists say: "It is sometimes argued that Christ abrogated the Mosaic law, and therefore there is no longer any obligation to keep the Sabbath; but He himself declares that He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. Notice that He never says that He abrogated the Sabbath." Baptist Sunday School Quarterly, March, 1929.

The Methodist Episcopal Church School Journal of March 1929 makes this statement: "Jesus observed the Hebrew Sabbath, which was from sunset on Friday, to sunset on Saturday. Strictly speaking, the 'SABBATH' means Saturday." According to this, I find myself in complete agreement with the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Here is a statement from an outstanding Baptist. Dr. Edward T. Hiscox says: "It will be said, however . . . that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week.

Earnestly desiring information on this subject . . I ask, Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament, absolutely not." Dr. Hiscox is author of The Baptist Manual, and made this statement in a paper read November 13, 1893, before a convention of Baptist ministers.

Here is a statement by a well-known Lutheran leader, Rev. H. Bielenberg, June 20, 1933: "There is no command in the Bible to keep Sunday as a day of rest. WHY DO WE KEEP SUNDAY. The seventh day is not the first."

This same Lutheran leader also said: "If you tell me that the provisions for the Sabbath, Saturday, are brought over to Sunday, then I will challenge you to show me one proof passage, one word of the Bible to prove this." So I find that I must agree with the Lutherans.

Here is what the great evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, has to say about the Sabbath: "I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding today as it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible where God repealed it." Weighed and Wanting, pp. 46-50.

Here is another statement from the Presbyterian Church: "God instituted the Sabbath at creation, setting apart the seventh day for that purpose, and imposed its observance as a universal and perpetual obligation upon the human race." Tract #175. By the Presbyterian Board of Publication.

We have one more statement made by a prominent Methodist Journal. It says: "If the New Testament silence on any subject proves that the matter is unimportant, then the Christian emphasis on the observance of Sunday is really a mistake. Nowhere does the Bible tell us to observe Sunday. Nowhere does it say that Saturday Sabbath-keeping is wrong." Epworth Herald, Editorial, July 21, 1923.

Some people say that time has been lost, but the astronomers refute this argument In very strong language. They tell time by the stars, and they assure us that we have not lost any time. It Is true, the calendar has had to be changed but never has the weekly cycle been changed. The same Sabbath that men keep today, is the Sabbath that Jesus kept when He was here on earth 1900 years ago.

In regard to the "lost time" theory, the astronomer Hinckley says: "By calculating the eclipses, it can be proven that NO TIME HAS BEEN LOST, and the creation days were seven, divided into twenty-four hours." Watchman Magazine, July 1926.

Prof. Totten, of Yale, tells us: "In spite of all our dickerings with the calendar, it is patent that the human race NEVER LOST the septenary sequence of week days, and that the Sabbath of these later times, comes down to us from Adam, through the ages, WITHOUT A SINGLE LAPSE."

Of this seven day week, Prof. Totten, of Yale, also says: "No day is missing, no cycle calls for less, all call for the same, and all unite in a concert of testimony not to be shaken by men or the devil."

Now if we really want to know why Protestants keep Sunday, we will find that the anti-christ boasts of the fact that Protestants keep Sunday because they were given that day by the infallible authority, AS THEY CALL IT, of the Pope of Rome. Protestants do not keep Sunday because God, or Christ, or the apostles command them to do so, but they do it because the Catholic Church commands it.

From a Catholic Pamphlet by the Electric Press in Lancaster, England, we read: "Every Protestant who keeps Sunday is doing just what Rome wants him to do, and IS OBEYING ROME, as she is the only church which claims to have power to change laws, and did change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday."

Again we read a boast from the Papal authorities: "The Sunday, as a day of the week set apart from the obligatory public worship of Almighty God.. . is purely a CREATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH." The Catholic Quarterly Review, Jan. 1883, p. 139.

In a letter to W. W. Ellis, May 25, 1932, Father E. Coughlin says: "The Protestants, in forming their religious sects, retained many of the customs of the Catholic Church, including the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath."

"Sunday is founded, not on Scripture, but on TRADITION, and is distinctly a Catholic institution." Catholic Record, Sept. 17, 1893. Could any statement be any plainer than this one?

Continuing from the same magazine: "As there is no Scripture for the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday, and thus leave Catholics in full possession of Sunday."

Father Gerritsma says: "Now every child in school knows that the Sabbath day is Saturday, the seventh day of the week; yet with the exception of the Seventh-day Adventists, all Protestant denominations keep Sunday instead of the Sabbath day, because the CATHOLIC CHURCH MADE THIS CHANGE in the first stages of Christianity." Winnipeg Free Press, April 21, 1884. We cannot agree with the foregoing statement that Seventh-day Adventists are the only ones who keep the seventh day Sabbath, but there are very few other denominations that do.

"You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and PUT ANOTHER DAY IN THE PLACE OF THAT DAY WHICH THE BIBLE HAS COMMANDED." Library of Christian Doctrine, p. 3.

From the same Catholic source we read: "The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments; you believe that the other nine are still binding; who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth?" Library of Christian Doctrine, p. 4.

And finally we read from the Kansas City Catholic, of Feb. 9, 1893: "The Catholic Church of its own INFALLIBLE AUTHORITY created Sunday a holy day to take the place of the Sabbath of the old law."

It is clear, from all of these statements by outstanding religious authorities, that the first day of the week is a forgery, and that Sunday has no right or claim to the title of the Sabbath. God says the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, but Rome says, "No, the first day is the Sabbath, and by my infallible authority I command you to keep it." Which one of these will you obey?

If you were traveling down a road, and you discovered that you were going down the wrong way, would you continue to stay on that road although it would never take you to the place you wanted to go, or would you be wise and turn around and head in the right direction? But some people say, "Well, it doesn't make any difference, even though Sunday may be wrong. I'll keep it the best I can, and God will understand." Friends, it does not make any difference how well we may keep the day, if we are disobeying God, the road that we are on will not take us to the right destination. We better get on the right road.

Of the seventh-day Sabbath, Alexander Campbell says: "IT NEVER WAS CHANGED, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed! The Christian Baptist, p. 44. The Papacy has tried to change the time of the Sabbath and the Law of God. Millions of people have been deceived and duped by this anti-christ power. This is the deception that God prophesied would deceive the whole world. The time has come to expose this great deception, and to show the world what has been done. The time has also come for Christians everywhere to turn back to God and His truth.

What would you think if I held up the flag of Communistic Russia in my hand and waved it high, shouting, "Hurrah for Communism," and took the flag of the United States in my other hand and cast it to the floor and wiped my feet on it? Every red-blooded American in this place would rise up and deal with me as I would deserve to be dealt with.

Yet we think nothing of accepting the authority of a power that is anti-christ, the enemy of God, accepting his symbol or sign of his authority (Sunday) as against God's great sign of power and authority (the Sabbath). When we do this, we are proving our disloyalty to God just as much as we would show our disloyalty to America by waving the Communist flag.

Oh, how many are taking God's great symbol, the holy Sabbath day, and casting it in the dirt, and wiping their feet on it. Will you continue to follow the anti-christ, or will you have the courage of your convictions and turn, even now, and follow Jesus Christ and His Holy Word?

Jesus says: "But in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matt. 15:9. I believe tonight that you are going to refuse to accept the commandments of a man above the commandments of God. Jesus loved you enough to come to this earth and give His life to save you. Will you stand for Christ and the Bible tonight? How many of you will stand for the Lord tonight? If you will, please stand to your feet. Let us pray.