“CHRISTENDOM’S MOST PUZZLING QUESTION.” A lecture by Mr. R.H. Kent. In the world today we find millions of sincere Christians observing Sunday, the first day of the week as a holy day, and we find too, many Christians, just as sincere, honouring God and resting on the seventh day of the week. Both days cannot be right in the sight of God. Thus in our search for truth we must ask – What does the Bible say? Authority for the change from the original seventh day taught in Bible, times, (if such a change has taken place,) must be revealed in the Bible. We submit here, in resume form, the evidence presented from God’s Word and reliable historians, that will lead us to the truth on this important question. COULD GOD CHANGE HIS OWN LAW? The law of God is as sacred as the Lawgiver Himself. It is a transcript of His character, a revelation of His will and the expression of His love and wisdom. It is the foundation of His eternal throne. As God is love, so His law is eternal love expressed. Could God have changed His eternal law, Christ would never have died on Calvary’s cross to meet the sinner’s penalty for disobedience. The fact of Christ’s death is visible evidence that the Law is changeless. Let us examine its changelessness of immutability further: In MALACHI 3:6 and JAMES 1:17 we find that God does not change. God’s eternal purposes never vary. They are changeless. DEUTERONOMY 4:13 tells us that the Ten Commandments are God’s own covenant. In JEREMIAH 29:11 we are told that God has one objective for mankind. His plans for us are intended to bring peace between the rebel sinner and the God who created man. God’s covenant is based on the Ten Commandments. It is His eternal purpose to write His laws in our natures so that we shall be reunited with God in sinlessness and purity. The Ten Commandments are the basis of this covenant, or plan of God, for our salvation. Why should God change His eternal plan for man’s return to obedience to Him? He promises to keep this covenant without fail: PSALM 89:34 God will never break or alter His covenant. The Bible declares the covenant to be the Ten Commandments. Our text declares that God will never break this covenant or change it. DEUTERONOMY 7:9 declares that God keeps His covenant to a thousand generations. PSALM 105:8-10 says that God remembers His covenant forever and that He commanded it to be kept for a thousand generations. Our world is nearly 6,000 years old. Divide 6,000 years by a generation of say 60 years. This would mean we could be in the 100th generation. But treble it, or even multiply it by five, and we are still far from the thousand generations mentioned in our text. No! No! God’s law is timeless – endless. Should a thousand generations pass, the Ten Commandments would still stand firm. We know from ECCLESIASTES 3:14 that God’s acts stand forever. In ISAIAH 55:11 God declares that the “word…that goeth forth out of my mouth” shall not return unfulfilled, but that it will accomplish His eternal purposes. God never changes. His word is changeless. His law is for all time. But did Jesus change God’s law? DID JESUS CHANGE THE LAW AND THE SABBATH? Jesus declared that He and His Father were one, and that He came to do the will of His Father. It follows then that He could not do anything of which the Father did not approve. Jesus could not change the law of His Father – the commandments of God. JOHN 15:10 reveals that Jesus kept His Father’s Commandments. Jesus never sinned, for sin is the transgression of the law of God. Obviously, then, Jesus never broke the Sabbath. He kept the Sabbath of the fourth commandment of God’s holy law. It was never Christ’s intention to change the law which He Himself had spoken to man at Sinai. MATTHEW 5:17 Christ came to keep the law, not destroy it. Jesus further declared that anyone who taught men that the law is not binding would be called “the least in the kingdom of heaven” (MATTHEW 5:17-19) Christ would then lose His leadership in heaven – His place with God – should He fail to keep the law, or teach men to disregard it. In Bible prophecy, inspired holy men had foretold Christ’s coming to earth and declared prophetically His relation to God’s law while He dwelt among men: ISAIAH 42:21 says that Jesus came to magnify the Law. Jesus did uphold the law in His teaching and in His practice. We read that it was His practice to keep the Sabbath in LUKE 4:16. Jesus was a Sabbathkeeper by customary practice. He obeyed the commandment on Sabbath observance every seventh day. He disregarded the Jewish restrictions on the Sabbath not found in the Scriptures. MATTHEW 24:20 indicates that the Sabbath would be sacred forty years after the cross. The command found in this verse was made in connection with the prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction in A.D. 70. His crucifixion took place in A.D. 31, nearly forty years before. Jesus commanded Sabbath observance after the cross! Was Jesus guilty of changing God’s holy law? It is conclusive beyond question that Jesus never, by word or act, changed the law of God. Could it be that the apostles of Christ changed the Sabbath? DID PAUL CHANGE GOD’S LAW OR SABBATH? Paul was a great exponent of faith and grace. Did he teach that the law of Ten Commandments was done away with? In ROMANS 3:31, Paul declares that faith does not abolish the law: it establishes it. To establish is to place firmly, set on a solid foundation. The greater the sinner’s violation of the law of God, the more faith and grace are necessary to wash away his guilt and bring him into harmony with the character of God. When the idea of God’s law being done away with, is mentioned, Paul emphatically exclaims, “God forbid!” We are left to ask: “Is there any Bible proof of a change in God’s law?” DO MEN CLAIM THERE IS BIBLE PROOF FOR THE CHANGE? Let us ask the accused whether the Bible indicates any change of God’s holy law. Catholics say there is no Bible proof. Cardinal Gibbons declared: “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.” – The Faith of Our Fathers (110th ed.) , p. 89. Protestants say there is no Bible text. “The notion of a formal substitution (of the first for the seventh day)… …, and the transference to it, perhaps in a spiritualized form, of the sabbatical obligation established by…the Fourth Commandment, HAS NO BASIS WHATEVER, either in Holy Scripture or in Christian antiquity.” - Smith and Cheatham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, art. “Sabbath.” Now let us ask the Congregationalists for their testimony: Dr. R.W. Dale (Congregationalist), in ‘The Ten Commandments’ pp.100, 101, says: “It is quite clear that however rigidly or devoutly we spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath…The Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday…….. There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday.” What have the Baptists to say on this subject? Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of ‘The Baptist Manual’: “There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but the Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week…Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament, absolutely not.” - In a paper read before a New York Ministers Conference held November 13, 1893. Now let us turn to secular testimony from historical sources. ‘Chambers’ Encyclopaedia (1880): “Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the sabbatical observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 A.D.” – Article “Sabbath”. Augustus Neander, celebrated historian: “The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect; far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.” – ‘The History of the Christian Religion and Church’, Rose’s translation, p. 186. We have examined the testimony of history, of Protestant scholars and church men, and Roman Catholic sources as well. We are led to ask: DOES THE CHURCH OF ROME ADMIT SHE MADE THE CHANGE? Bible prophecy has declared that the Papacy would attempt to change God’s timeless law. We read this in DANIEL 7:25. Let us hear the testimony and admissions of the Roman Church that she has made this attempted change: “The Catholic church, for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, CHANGED the day from Saturday to Sunday.” - Catholic Mirror, Sept. 23, 1893. Next we quote the Rev. Peter Geiermann, ‘The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine’, p. 50: “Q. Which is the Sabbath day? A. Saturday is the Sabbath day. Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? A. 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.” These are bold admissions. Here are other important statements: “The American Sentinel (N.Y.)”. June 1, 1893, p. 173, quotes Father T. Enright, C.Ss.R., of Redemptorist College: “The Bible says, Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. The Catholic Church says, No! By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day, and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.” This brings us face to face with Christendom’s most puzzling question. I believe every heart is ready to hear it now. The following statement was made in the great church of the Jesu in Rome, the greatest Jesuit church in the world. Professor H.T. Everson, a friend of mine, was present in Rome at the time. Listen: “I shall speak to you today upon the Sabbath question. You may search your Bible from Genesis to Revelation and you will not find a single verse authorizing the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week. The Bible everywhere commands the observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week. I notice that this statement comes as a surprise to this large audience and I know you are wondering why we keep Sunday if the Bible does not command it to be kept. For us Catholics, the answer is simple. Jesus Christ gave to the Apostle Peter, the first pope, the keys of authority, and he in turn passed them on to each succeeding pope. When the time came that the pope felt that it was to the advantage of the church to change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, he made the change. Now you Catholics will find in this statement all the authority that you need for the observance of Sunday. But I wish to ask you Protestants present- why do you keep Sunday? If you keep it because the Catholic Church made it for you, why can’t you keep the rest of the days made by the same Church? And still Protestants remain silent! Sunday is not the Sabbath. God has never placed any sacredness in Sunday observance as a day of rest. It is a “child of the Catholic Church” “born out of wedlock” with paganism. How long will God continue to allow such apostasy and rebellion against His throne and His holy day? DO THE SCRIPTURES FORECAST A RESTORATION OF THE SABBATH? The Creator of the universe, who made the Sabbath as His sign of creative power, certainly would not leave His Sabbath flag to be trampled under the feet of His enemies. The far-seeing prophet of God, Isaiah, warned that the destruction of our world would be the final result of man’s revolt against the law of God. (Read ISAIAH 24, and especially verse 5). He also foretold the time when God’s broken law would be repaired and the Sabbath of creation restored to its rightful place in the law of God. ISAIAH 58:12,13: “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the FOUNDATIONS OF MANY GENERATIONS; and thou shalt be called, The REPAIRER OF THE BREACH, THE RESTORER OF PATHS TO DWELL IN. 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.” Christian friend, we must face the facts. God’s law is eternal. Even if it were changeable, only God, the Lawgiver, could change it. And His Word affords no such permission or record. A power that speaks “great words against the most High” is guilty of the attempted change. We must remember the warning of Jesus against substituting truth for error, in MARK 7:7. Let me ask you, Would you not rather be on God’s side with Christ, keeping His commandments, that you might have the eternal blessing of God? . I will follow Thee, my Saviour, Where-so-e’er my lot may be, Where Thou goest I will follow; Yes, my Lord, I’ll follow Thee. -----OOOO000OOOO----- For further info. or studies please phone: Cell: Errol 082 765 9498.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:28:00 +0000
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