What Scripture have they for
that? Here are the facts about the Sabbath, as plainly stated in the
Word of God:
Why keep the Sabbath day? What is the object of the Sabbath? Who
made it? When was it made, and for whom? Which day is the true Sabbath?
Some keep the seventh day, or Saturday.
After working the first six days of the week in creating this
earth, the great God rested on the seventh day. (Genesis 2:1.3.)
This stamped that day as God's rest day, or Sabbath day, as
Sabbath day means rest day. To illustrate: When a person is born on
a certain day, that day thus becomes his birthday. So when God
rested upon the seventh day, that day became His rest, or Sabbath,
day.
Therefore the seventh day must always be God's Sabbath day. Can
you change your birthday from the day on which you were born to one
on which you were not born? No. Neither can you change God's rest
day to a day on which He did not rest. Hence the seventh day is
still God's Sabbath day.
The Creator blessed the seventh day. (Genesis 2:3.)
Hence through him, as our representative, to all nations.
(Acts
17:26.)
It is' not a Jewish institution, for it was made 2,300 years
before ever there was a Jew.
The Bible never calls it the Jewish Sabbath, but always "the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Men should be cautious how they
stigmatize God's holy rest day.
Evident reference is made to the Sabbath and the seven-day week
all, through the patriarchal age. (Genesis 2:l-3; 8:10,12;
29:27,28.etc.)
Then God placed it in the heart of His moral law.
(Exodus 20:1-17.) Why did He place it there if it
was not like the other nine precepts, which all admit to be
immutable?
The seventh-day Sabbath was commanded by the voice of the
living God. (Deuteronomy 4:12,13.)
Then He wrote the commandment with His own finger.
(Exodus 31:18.)
He engraved it in the enduring stone, indicating its
imperishable nature. (Deuteronomy 5:22.)
It was sacredly preserved in the ark in the holy of holies.
(Deuteronomy 10:1-5.)
God forbade work upon the Sabbath, even in the most hurrying
times. (Exodus 34:21.)
God destroyed the Israelites in the wilderness because they
profaned the Sabbath. (Ezekiel 20:12, 13.)
It is the sign of the true God, by which we are to know Him
from false gods. (Ezekiel 20:20.)
God promised that Jerusalem should stand forever if the Jews
would keep the Sabbath (Jeremiah 17:24, 25.)
He sent them into the Babylonish captivity for breaking it.
(Nehemiah 13:18.)
He destroyed Jerusalem for its violation. (Jeremiah 17:27.)
God has pronounced a special blessing on all the Gentiles who
will keep it. (Isaiah 56:6,7.)
This is in the prophecy, which refers wholly to the Christian
dispensation. (See Isaiah 56.)
God has promised to bless all who keep the Sabbath.
(Isaiah 56:2.)
The Lord requires us to call it "honourable". (Isaiah 58:13.) Beware, ye who take delight in calling
it the. “old Jewish Sabbath,” “a yoke of bondage,” etc.
After the holy Sabbath has been trodden down "many
generations,” it is to be restored in the last days. (Isaiah 58:12,13.)
All the holy prophets kept the seventh day.
When the Son of God came, He kept the seventh day all His life.
(Luke
4:16; John 15:10.) Thus He followed His Father's
example at creation. Shall we not be safe in following the example
of both the Father and the Son?
Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath (Mark
2:28), that is, to love and protect it, as the husband is the
lord of the wife, to love and cherish her (1 Peter 3:6.)
He vindicated the Sabbath as a merciful institution designed
for man's good. (Mark 2:23-28.)
Instead of abolishing the Sabbath, He carefully taught how it
should be observed. (Matthew 12:1-13.)
He taught His disciples that they should do nothing upon the
Sabbath day but what was “lawful” (Matthew 12:12.)
He instructed His apostles that the Sabbath should be
prayerfully regarded forty years after His resurrection.
(Matthew 24:20.)
The pious women who had been with Jesus carefully kept the
seventh day after His death. (Luke 23:56.)
Thirty years after Christ's resurrection, the Holy Spirit'
expressly calls it "the Sabbath day,"(Acts
13:14.)
Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, called it the "Sabbath day"
in A.D. 45. (Acts 13:27.) Did not Paul know? Or shall we
believe modern teachers, who affirm that it ceased to be the
Sabbath at the resurrection of Christ?
Luke, the inspired Christian historian, writing as late as A.D.
62, calls it the "Sabbath day." (Acts
13:44.)
The Gentile converts called it the Sabbath. (Acts
13:42.)
In the great Christian council, A.D. 49, in the presence of the
apostles and thousands of disciples, James calls it the "sabbath
day." (Acts
15:21)
It was customary to hold prayer meetings upon that day.
(Acts
16:13.)
Paul read the Scriptures in public meetings on that day.
(Acts
17:2, 3.)
It was his custom to preach upon that day. (Acts
17:2,3.)
The Book of Acts alone gives a record of his holding
eighty-four meetings upon that day. (See Acts
13:14, 44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4. 11.)
There was never any dispute between the Christians and the Jews
about the Sabbath day. This is proof that the Christians still
observed the same day that the Jews did.
In all their accusations against Paul, they never charged him
with disregarding the Sabbath day. Why did they not, if he did not
keep it?
But Paul himself expressly declared that he had kept the law.
“Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple,
nor yet against Caesar, have I offended any thing at
all." Acts 25:8. How could this be true if he had not
kept the Sabbath?
The Sabbath is mentioned in the New Testament fifty-nine times,
and always with respect, bearing the same title it had in the Old
Testament, “the Sabbath day.”
Not a word is said anywhere in the New Testament about the
Sabbath's being abolished, done away, changed, or anything of the
kind.
God has never given permission to any man to work upon it.
Reader, by what authority do you use - the seventh day for common
labor?
No Christian of the New Testament, either before or after the
resurrection, ever did ordinary work upon the seventh day. Find one
case of that kind, and we will yield the question. Why should modem
Christians do differently from Bible Christians?
There is no record that God has ever removed His blessing or
sanctification from the seventh day.
As the Sabbath was kept in Eden before the fall, so it will be
observed eternally in the new earth after the restitution.
(Isaiah 66:22, 23.)
The seventh-day Sabbath was an important part of the law of
God, as it came from His own mouth, and was written by His own
finger upon stone at Sinai. (See Exodus 20.) When Jesus began His
work, He expressly declared that He had not come to destroy the
law. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the
prophets.” Matthew 5:17
Jesus severely condemned the Pharisees as hypocrites for
pretending to love God, while at the same tune they made void one
of the Ten Commandments by their tradition. The keeping of Sunday
is only a tradition of men.