Holy Sabbath #7

What Will You Do?

Fred R. Coulter

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• This is Holy Sabbath number seven, which we will conclude the series on the purpose of God’s Sabbath, and so forth. But what I want to do is I want to finish up reading some of the quotes, this time from the Protestants. Now, we’ve seen all the quotes from the Catholics, and how that they say, which is absolutely true - and at least they are honest in it; today they are no longer honest in it, but at least they were before the beginning of the twentieth century, the last part of the nineteenth century. And that is, that you can search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find one single line authorizing the observance of Sunday. Everywhere the Scriptures enforce the observance of Sabbath. And as the Catholics have said, “…which is a day that we have never sanctified.”

So that’s important to understand; and remember, do you want your salvation based on a lie? Let’s ask another question: how can you possibly have salvation and worship and serve God if you do that which is not contained in the Scriptures? How can you possibly keep yourself from sinning if you are keeping Sunday, which is sin, once a week? Because you have two sins: one, you’re breaking the Sabbath; and two, you’re keeping Sunday. But what makes it even worse is this: all of the theologians – Catholics and Protestants – know and understand that Sunday was never the day that God gave.

Now let me read these quotes here to you. Here is one. And this is from an Anglican, Isaac Williams is his name: “And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day… The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason we observe many other things, not because of the Bible, but because the Church has enjoined it.”[i] So that’s really quite an admission. Let’s look at that. Nowhere is there a command to keep the first day. And it doesn’t matter what you do to look at all the Scriptures. We just covered them last time. Everywhere it was the first day of the week.

Now here’s another one. And this one is from Jimmy Taylor, Church of England: “The Lord’s Day was merely an ecclesiastical institution…” Meaning, that it was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church. “…It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment.” Now here, a Mr. Moore, a learned clergyman of the Church of England says…now these are all Protestants. And you have to understand that the Protestants, in following Rome, in keeping Sunday and Christmas and Easter, they never really finished the Reformation. They never really came out of the Reformation at all. They are still locked to the Roman Catholic Church, because they keep these days.

Now let’s read this admission. He says, “The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath.” And as a matter of fact, the Sabbath was kept by the Church of God always. But it was widely kept by all professing Christians, worldly and true Christians – because there’s a version of both, you know. And the true Christians kept the Sabbath, and it was noted in history up to the third and fourth century they kept the Sabbath. But when the persecutions came and they were driven out of the Roman Empire, then all knowledge of the Sabbath in history was lost. But there has been a continuous chain of keeping the Sabbath by the people of God always. Because they are the ones who have the faith of Jesus Christ and keep His commandments.

Here – let’s go to Revelation 14 and let’s read that. That’s very important to understand. Because the Protestants will argue back and forth all the time that you cannot have faith and you cannot have Sabbath-keeping together. They say one is antithesis of the other. No, they have everything all mixed up on it. They have justification mixed up with Sabbath-keeping and commandment-keeping, saying that, “No one can keep the commandments, so therefore, we don’t have to keep the commandments.” But Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Now notice what is said here. And this is a prophecy of the Church of God at the end time. Revelation 14:12, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” So faith and Sabbath-keeping go together. That’s what’s so important to understand concerning the Sabbath-Sunday question.

Now all of these quotes are available from the Sabbath Association, the Bible Sabbath Association.[ii] Now let’s look and see what the Baptists admit. And this is Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a Baptist: “There was and is a command to keep holy Sabbath day, but that 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.”[iii] So it is an empty, vain boast that it has been transferred. There is nowhere - we have not seen one Scripture, there has not been one word from Christ, there has not been one thing said about Sunday.

Now let me give you an example of how Christ made the commandments of God spiritually applicable, and how He made the standard of obedience greater. Then we will see what Christ would have had to have said in order to transfer the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week. Now here, let’s come here to Matthew 5, and let’s begin right here in verse 27. This is an excellent example of how, in the New Testament, commandment-keeping is now a higher standard. It is a Spiritual standard. It is something, then, which then begins with the whole way that you think and you act and you live.

Verse 27, Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you,…” Now He says it because He is Lord. He says it because He was the Lawgiver of the Old Testament, and gave the law, “You shall not commit adultery” to the children of Israel when He was the Lord God of the Old Testament. So He has the right, and He alone has the right to change any commandment. Now let’s understand that very clearly. No man has a right to change any commandment. No man has the right to do away with the Word of God.

Now let’s read what He says here. “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (vs. 28). Now therefore, in order for the Sabbath to have been changed from Sabbath to Sunday, taking this example, we would have to read the words of Jesus which would have to say, “You have heard it said in old time, ‘Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.’ But I say unto you, you shall keep the first day of the week holy.” But that’s not in the Scriptures. So when this Baptist says that people make a “show of triumph” that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh day to the first day, he says, “…Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament, absolutely not.” Now this was a paper read August 20, 1893. And probably at that time it was in a Baptist ministers meeting at Saratoga, New York. Now at that time, there were probably those wanting to keep the Sabbath, and wanting to shift the Baptist Church away from Sunday, the first day of the week, to the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. And so this was probably part of the discussion that was going on.

Now here’s another one from a Baptist, J. J. Taylor, a Baptist, The Sabbath Question: “The Lord’s Day is not sanctified by any specific command, or by any inevitable inference. In all the New Testament there is no hint or suggestion of a legal obligation binding any man, whether saint or sinner, to observe the day [that is, Sunday]. Its sanctity arises only out of what it means to the true believer.” In other words, there is nothing from God to authorize the change - only what people may think. And if a person thinks it’s good, if a person thinks it’s right, if they have been convinced by the lie that it is, well then, that’s what they will go by. But they won’t go to the Scriptures. If you do, then you go to the Word of God. And when you go to the Word of God, then what you must do is follow the Word of God. And Jesus said, as we saw at the very beginning, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God shall man live” (Matthew 4:4, paraphrased).

Now let’s continue on. Here’s one from a Congregationalist in an article, The Ten Commandments, by Dr. R. W. Dale, a British Congregationalist: “…It is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may 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.”[iv] Now that’s quite an admission. I mean, if you are a Sunday-keeper, you need to think on these admissions. What is really important is, at least in these admissions here, they are being honest. But while they salve over their consciences, they are being dishonest, because they continue with Sunday. If anyone truly believed what was said here, they surely would have kept the Sabbath. But you see, they rely upon twisting scriptures. And in the series that will follow this one, “Refuting Sunday-Keeping,” there were twenty-five reasons given by a man that Christians ought to keep Sunday. And we will refute, scripturally, every single one of those twenty-five reasons, just like we have refuted everything concerning the claims concerning Sabbath, that the Sabbath is no longer meant to be observed.

Now let’s continue on here with some of these quotes. Now here’s one. Timothy Dwight’s Theology, American Congregationalist, says, “The Christian Sabbath [that is, Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath.”[v] And that means the apostolic church. What did the apostles do when they taught? What did they teach the disciples? They taught them to keep the commandments and the Sabbath and the holy days. That’s what they were taught. And so this whole thing of the primitive church and things like this eventually ends up just being kind of a mockery of the Word of God. Some say, “Well, the Bible was not canonized until the 400’s A.D.” No it wasn’t. It was canonized and final canonized by the apostle John. And so it wasn’t the church’s authority to change anything that God had given in the Old Testament, or anything that the apostles had given in the New Testament. But they went ahead and did it and called it, “Well, the church fathers had their writings. Which then, from whence we get our traditions.” But remember what we saw concerning the traditions of the Jews. And that applies to the traditions of the Catholics, and that applies to the traditions of the Protestants, to where “Full well you keep your tradition and reject the commandment of God” (Mark 7:9, paraphrased).

Now let’s continue on here. Here’s one from the Disciples of Christ, Alexander Campbell, the founder of the Disciples of Christ. “‘But,’ say some, ‘it was changed from the seventh to the first day.’ Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it was never changed, nor could it be unless creation was to be gone through again;...” Because you see, God created the day. He created the time. So it couldn’t be changed unless you went through creation again. “…For the reason assigned must be changed for the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed!...” In other words, you can’t change the reason for keeping a day unless you first change the day. That’s what he is saying. And the day was never changed. Now continuing on, “…It is all old wives’ fables to talk about the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that the august personage changed it who thinks to change times and laws ex officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.”[vi] Another name for the Church at Rome and the Pope at Rome.

Now here’s another quote from the First Day Observance: “The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change.”[vii] Now even the Lutherans know it. And it’s interesting that if you read the history of Luther very carefully you will find that he came that close to accepting the Sabbath and holy days. But those rich princes and barons who supported him talked him out of it. Later he went insane. The Catholics say that he went insane because he translated the Bible. But could it be that he went insane because he rejected the Sabbath and the holy days after translating the Bible, after having it clearly shown to him, after God revealing it to him? We just have to leave that as a question in history because we cannot answer that question. We weren’t there. But that gives another thought to consider concerning the life of Martin Luther.

Now here, the Lutherans; and this is from the United Lutheran Church, 1923, “The Sunday Problem.” So they’ve known it all along. Listen - every minister who is a Protestant has to cross the Sabbath-Sunday intersection. Every Sunday-keeping person has to also likewise cross that Sabbath-Sunday intersection. And most of them for convenience, and most of them for peer pressure, and most of them because they are not grounded in the Scriptures, believe the false interpretations of the twisting of the Scriptures which the ministers do from the pulpit to convince them that Sunday is all right. And they salve their conscience and they daub it with untempered mortar, but it’s all going to fall. It is not true.

Now let’s continue on here and let’s read this. “We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one with out the other, but for a time celebrated both.”[viii] Now that is a somewhat true statement. There was a time when there was Sabbath confusion, Sunday confusion; when there were the teachers saying, “Well, now we transfer it to Sunday,” and those saying, “No, it’s the Sabbath;” and people came up with the idea, “Well let’s keep both.”

And that happened in one well known Sabbath-keeping church, which has now completely rejected Sabbath and the holy days, and have gone to Sunday, Christmas, and Easter. And that’s what they did for a while - they allowed Sabbath and Sunday-keeping: “All of those of you who want to keep the Sabbath, you do that; and all of those of you who want to keep Sunday, you do that. That will just be fine. Just what ever you think.” Well that’s not what God says. God says, “I am the Lord God. I am the one Who brought you out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall make no idols; you shall not take My name in vain; remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Nowhere did He ever say, “Well, whatever you think.”

Now let’s look at one scripture to see what happens when people do just what they think. “Well, whatever you think, that’s all right. You have your truth, I have my truth. You’re a Hindu; you’re a Muslim; you’re a Protestant; you’re a Catholic; you’re a Sabbath-keeper. Whatever you think, that’s OK. You just go right ahead and do it.” Well let’s go here to Judges, the very last chapter in the book of Judges and let’s see what happens when every man does that which is right in his own eyes. You have sin, you have confusion; and sooner or later you have the correction of God, and the mighty hand of God because God is not going to be mocked. Whatever a person sows that is what he’s going to reap. And if they sow to lies of Sunday-keeping, and the lies of rejecting Sabbath-keeping, and the lies of Christmas and Easter, and all of that, then they are doing what is right in their own eyes and a correction from the hand of God is going to come.

But notice, this is Judges 21:25. “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” And God never gave us that authority to do what is right in our own eyes. Because that was the sin of Adam and Eve, as we saw. They chose to make their own way rather than obey God. They chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than the tree of life, and they brought upon mankind the whole existence that we have now. So if anyone says, “You just do whatever you think concerning Sabbath and Sunday,” they are entirely, absolutely wrong, and are liars.

Now what I want you to think upon is this. Notice that all of these quotes are coming from the end of the nineteenth century and just on into the beginning of the twentieth century. And I want you to think about how much knowledge has been lost because of rejecting the Sabbath and embracing Sunday in a greater and greater way. There must have been a time when God was revealing even to the Sunday-keeping Protestants at this time, because of these quotes about the Sabbath, that many of them were ready to reject Sunday-keeping and begin to obey God the way that they should by keeping the Sabbath and the holy days.

Now let me read you another one here. And this is from Philip Schaffs’ The Creeds of Christendom: “Because it was requisite to appoint a certain day that the people might know when they ought to come together, it appears the Christian Church did for that purpose appoint the Lord’s Day.” And that is somewhat of a true statement. That’s exactly what the Catholics have done. But the Christian church - remember there are two kinds: there is the worldly Christian-professing church which keeps Sunday, Christmas, Easter, and has a licentious grace, and no commandment-keeping. There is the true Church of God, which then is made up of true Christians having the Holy Spirit of God, who keep the Sabbath and who keep the holy days. So to take a label and just say “Christian” in a broad sense, and to include all Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox and so forth, is too broad of a brush, too broad of a definition. So you need to distinguish between worldly Christianity, who profess Christ, and those who are the true Christians and have the Spirit of God and are of the Church of God, and who believe Christ. There is a vast difference between profession and belief.

Now let’s continue on here with another one. The History of the Christian Religion and Church, by Augustus Neander: “The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect…” Let me read that again: “…It was far from the intentions of the apostles [and they are the ones who wrote the New Testament] to establish a Divine command in that respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.”[ix] Now listen - these people knew. And when you know the truth and reject the truth then you bring upon you disaster. Now that disaster may not come in the way that you think. Because the greatest disaster is to be cut off from God. And those who are cut off from God because of Sabbath-breaking and Sunday-keeping do not know that they are cut off from God, and they feel so good in it. Because there is pleasure in sin for a season. But you see, the greatest disaster is yet to come, and they don’t know that they won’t have salvation the way that they are thinking they are going to get it. Because you do not have salvation unless you are keeping the commandments of God.

Now let’s again go to the book of Revelation. Let’s come to Revelation 22, and let’s see something so very important. Now if you’ve got an NIV Bible, the first thing you better do is throw it away. Or a New American Standard Bible, get rid of it. Perhaps maybe the New King James might be all right. But let me tell you something profound: the Greek text that underlies the Revised Standard Version, the New American Bible, the New English Bible, and all of the modern ones, the New International Version, have the wrong Greek text. They do not translate from the Byzantine text as did the translators of the King James Version of the Bible. They translate from the Western Text, which was altered by Gnostics who did not believe in Christ as the Son of God come in the flesh; and did not believe in commandment-keeping. And they changed the Scriptures to read differently.

Here, Revelation 22, let’s pick it up here in verse 12. Let’s read the words of Christ. “And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Now if the works are the works which are done from men of their own works and not from the good works which God ordained that we’re to walk in, they are not going to receive salvation. It’s just that plain. It’s just that simple. Jesus says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Meaning that all of these things continue from the beginning to the end. Now notice in that context verse 14: “Blessed are they that do His commandments,...” (Rev. 22:12-14). Now in the Greek, the Greek word for “do” is poieo, which means “practice.” “Blessed are they that do [practice] His commandments, that they may have [the] right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” In other words, if you are not keeping the commandments of God, you have no salvation. Do you understand that? Do you grasp that?

Now, more modern translations say this: “Blessed are they who have washed their robes...” Deliberate mistranslation to lead people astray. Will you believe the Word of God, or will you believe men? Will you keep the commandments of God, or go on continuing in your own way, to do your own thing, to keep your own Sunday, to keep your own Christmas and Easter and all of the pagan holidays? What will you do? You have to answer that question. Because if you desire salvation then you better repent of Sunday-keeping, and Christmas-keeping, and Easter-keeping, and all of the ways of this world; and you need to come to Christ with a broken heart and a broken Spirit, and confess your sins and put them under the blood of Christ, and He will forgive you. And then you are to come out of that watery grave of baptism and walk in newness of life. And newness of life is to keep the commandments of God with the Spirit of God in you. That’s what you need to do.

Now let’s come back and see some other quotes here. Now this is from the Methodists. Now today the Methodists will allow anything - homosexual marriages, women priests, and all of that sort of thing. And this is from the Theological Compendium by Amos Binney: “It is true that there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week….”[x] There are a lot of things that the churches do which are not true. Now here’s another one from a publication called The Sabbath Question, the Methodists: “The Lord’s Day is not sanctified by any command or any inevitable inference. In all the New Testament there is no hint or suggestion of a legal obligation binding upon man, whether a saint or sinner, to observe the day [that is, Sunday].” Now here’s another quote here. This is given by the Sabbath Association in printing out these things. “On what authority have the Protestants to observe Sunday? Plainly, on the authority of the very Catholic Church which they say they have abandoned.” But they haven’t.

And now there is a book out called All Roads Lead to Rome. And if you are a Protestant, what you need to understand is that the Roman Catholic Church has had its agents of ecumenism working, and have infiltrated almost every other church to bring the doctrines together so that the churches will all come back home to Rome. And it’s sad to see that where the Protestant Reformation started in England; and in England it started because of the translation of the New Testament and half of the Old Testament by William Tyndale, and he almost single-handedly caused the Protestant Reformation in England. And how they threw off the yoke of the Catholics, and all the bloody history that they went through. And William Tyndale gave his life in martyrdom. And God heard his prayer and opened the mind of the King of England, King Henry VIII. And he threw off the yoke of Catholicism and established what became the Anglican Church.

But now it has been so infiltrated that even the leading bishop of the Church of England has now gone to Rome and has had communion with the Pope. And only the last vestige of the Protestant Reformation in England that is left is that if there is a law passed where the king, or his wife, can be Catholic. And when that happens, Protestant Reformation in England is completely undone. Now that’s something to think about. Think about what they have done to the Scriptures. Think about the things that they have admitted here. And then ask yourself, “What will I do?”

Now while you are thinking about what you will do, let’s ask another question. Because there are more days than just the weekly Sabbath. There are also the annual Sabbaths. And likewise, the church has rejected those. Now let’s go back and review the Scripture as we saw back here in Exodus 31. And let’s begin in verse 13. And this time I want to go ahead and emphasize again that what it is talking about here is “sabbaths,” plural. And then what we will do, we will take an overview of the annual holy days of God and we will go through sections of the Old Testament and New Testament, as an overview, to see which days they were keeping. And we will find out when we get to the epistle of 1 Corinthians by the apostle Paul, that the apostle Paul gives a clear and precise and imperative command for that Gentile church to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is one of the feasts of God.

Nowhere will you find Christmas, Easter, and New Years, and all of the holidays of this world expounded as something that we should keep. All of them are those, as we have seen, that we should not keep. There is a warning in Jeremiah 10 that we are not to have anything to do with Christmas. There’s a warning in Jeremiah 8 that we are not to participate in Easter services with hot cross buns. Now I don’t have time to go into detail on all of that; I’ll do that at another time. But there is also in the book of Ezekiel 8 an absolute forbiddance of Easter sunrise service, and weeping for Tammuz which was done at midnight on Friday, supposedly for Christ nowadays by the Catholic Church. None of those, none of those days were there.

Now let’s read something here that is very important. This is taken from the book called My Catholic Faith, page 416. And it says, “In the history of the church we find that she has often Christianized pagan festivals….” What did we read? Deuteronomy 12 - let’s go back and read that again because this is so important. Here the Roman Catholic Church is bragging about what they have done with these pagan days. All they have done is change the name. They have not changed the practices. Now let’s read it. Deuteronomy 12:29. No, let’s go to verse 28 so we get the whole context here, so we get the comparison. “Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God.” Now you see, all the commandments of God were designed to bring you a right, proper way of living, so that God’s blessing would be upon you, so that you could do that which is good and right. Not whatever you think in your own sight, but what is good and right in the sight of God.

Now notice verse 29, “When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; take heed to thyself [watch out, beware] that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which He hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminished from it” (vs. 28-32). Now these are the words of God. No one is to add to it. The Roman Catholic Church has no authority from God to change these pagan days, which they readily admit here, and put Christian-sounding names on them and say, “We are given to do these abominations.”

Let me finish this quote. “…We find that she has often Christianized pagan festivals, making use of dates and ceremonies and endowing them with an entirely new and Christian significance. In accordance with this tradition she now has placed the observance of Labor Day under the powerful patronage of St. Joseph, the humble and saintly worker, whom God chose as the head of the Holy Family.” There you go. Men can claim to make things holy all they want. They can look out at all of these quaint, pagan, religious customs. They can adopt them. They can make it part of their liturgy. They make it part of the things that they do. They can rename them. But you see, an abomination is an abomination, is an abomination, is an abomination. You can change the name but you can’t change what it is. You can put a new name on Baal, but it’s still Baal. You could put a new name on Semiramis but it’s still Semiramis. You can put a new name, the name of Christ on Tammuz, but it’s still Tammuz. So God says you are not to do it.

Now let’s go back and see the command here in Exodus 31:13 again. And let’s see whether we can really come to understand it now, and then we will do a survey of the holy days of God. “…Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily...” Now verily means truly. It also can mean “amen.” “…Verily [or truly] My sabbaths [plural] ye shall keep:...” We just read you’re not to keep any of the other days of the pagans. We just read where the Catholics bragged that that’s what they do. So you need to understand, anyone who follows what the Catholics enjoin upon their church, whether you are Protestant, regardless of what you are, you are following the abominations which God has said not to do.

“Verily My sabbaths [plural] ye shall keep:...” That’s just like anything else. You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder. You shall remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, “…My sabbaths [plural] ye shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.” Now if you don’t keep the holy sabbaths, the annual sabbaths of God, you are not sanctified by God. And furthermore, you don’t know God. Do you understand that? If you don’t keep the seventh-day Sabbath and holy days of God, you don’t know Him. You may know of Him, and you may have to come to the point, which you should, like Job did, he said, “Oh, I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.” That’s because he saw himself for what he was and repented. Well it’s the same thing that has to happen to each one of us. We need to see ourselves for what we are. And we need to see ourselves all involved in all of this pagan abomination and observance of things which God never said that we are to do. And to repent of it, and to withdraw and to come out of it, and to get away from it. Because they are abominations.

Do you what the sign of God upon you, through keeping His sabbaths, that is, His weekly Sabbath and the holy days? Or do you want the sign of Satan the devil and its worlds religion put upon you? And maybe that’s the sign which goes all the way back to Cain, who murdered his brother Abel. You have one of the two. You either have the sign of God or you have the sign of Satan. The sign of God includes the holy days which we’ll go through in just a minute, which includes the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Day of Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day. So coupled with the weekly Sabbath, those are the signs of God. The sign of Satan is Sunday, Christmas, Easter, New Year’s, and all of the other paganized, Christianized feasts that the Roman Catholic Church has given to their church. Which sign do you have?

Footnotes:

• [i] Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, vol. 1, pp. 334, 336
• [ii] The Bible Sabbath Association is found online at www.biblesabbath.org
• [iii] Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a paper read before a New York ministers’ conference, Nov. 13, 1893, and reported in the New York Examiner, Nov. 16, 1893.
• [iv] Dr. R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments (New York: Eaton & Mains), p. 127-129.
• [v] Timothy Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Ser. 107, vol. 3, p. 258
• [vi] Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist, Feb. 22, 1824, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 164
• [vii]First Day Observance, pp. 17, 19
• [viii]The Sunday Problem, a study book of the Lutheran United Church (1923), p. 36
• [ix] Dr. August Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church, Henry John Rose, tr. (1843), p. 186
• [x] Amos Binney (1802-1878), Theological Compendium, 1902 edition, pp. 180-181, 171

Part 2

Now let’s come to Leviticus 23. Here is where all the holy days of God are kept. Now I know that a lot of people going to say, “Well, now, these are ceremonial laws.” The truth is they’re not. And we have a tape that you can write in for, “Which Came First: the Day or the Ceremony?” And we will see the day came first. The Passover day was given while they were in Egypt, and the first day of Unleavened Bread while they were in Egypt. The whole Feast of Unleavened Bread while they were in Egypt. They came to Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments were given to them on the day which became the day of Pentecost. So we need to understand there is a whole lot more here in the Bible than what people like to say, “Just go ahead and reject.” Because you see, the carnal mind wants to hear that they don’t have to obey God. So if you like those arguments, you are carnal-minded. While you may profess with your lips that you want salvation and want God, you truly don’t want to obey Him when it comes down to the crunch time to do what God says.

Now here let’s go to Leviticus 23. As I said, this will be a survey. Verse 1, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD,...” Now these belong to Him. That’s why it’s the feast of the Lord, the Lord’s feasts, “...which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My feasts.” (Lev. 23:1-2). So you see, the truth is, anyone who is teaching or preaching, even including going all the way back to Moses, all they can do is proclaim what God has said. And as a matter of fact, when you read here all the commands that God gave to Moses, it is, “The Lord said to Moses saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say…’” All he did was convey the words of God to the children of Israel.

Now another thing you ought to understand is that the church today is the true Israel of God. So you think on that. We will cover that at a later time. Now continuing in verse 3, “Six days shall work be done:...” So the Sabbath day is a feast of God. Just like it says back there in Exodus 31:13, “Verily My Sabbaths you shall keep.” The first one is the weekly Sabbath. “…But the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.” (vs. 3). Now let’s read verse 4. Verse 4 then is the summary of all that is to come after that. Now let’s understand something very profound here. The way that Leviticus 23 is laid out is this: it starts out with the weekly Sabbath first. That is the overarching authority for all of the annual Sabbaths. And as you keep the one you must keep the other.

Verse 4, “These are the feasts of the LORD,...” Same statement as referring to the Sabbath. “...Even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.” So we have no obligation other than to proclaim them. Nothing else. “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’s passover” (vs. 4-5). Now I have written a big, thick five hundred page book called The Christian Passover, which goes through and explains everything concerning the Passover from the beginning of it with Abraham, all the way down to the Passover day on which Jesus Christ was crucified. And since that is the covenant renewal day for Christians today, Satan has done everything that he can to destroy, to pervert, to malign, to get people not to keep the Passover, and to make it something that they will not do. And he has substituted all kinds of things for it, like the Lord’s Supper, Communion, Eucharist, and all of those things. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian Passover. So you write for the book. That will give you a complete and detailed understanding, and the magnificent thing that God has done through the sacrifice of Christ, to understand why we’re here, where we are going, why did God do this, how it was accomplished. And you need that book. And you need to read it and understand it.

Now then, the first month, according to God’s calendar, is generally in what we call on the Roman calendar March and April. Now it will vary, because the calendar that God has given us, the calculated Hebrew calendar, is a lunar-solar calendar, which coordinates the movements of the moon for the months and the movement of the sun for the years, and brings it all together in a perfect way of keeping the commandments of God for the holy days. Now let’s continue on here, verse 6. “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread...” And there’s a great meaning for that. Because that is when the children of Israel left Egypt. And God gave His covenant to Abraham on that day. That is a fantastic day. But people who don’t keep it, why, that’s strange to hear that. And unleavened bread? Ooh, my. Kind of strange to hear that too, isn’t it?

Now notice, “...Seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.” Because there are lessons for us. And you learn as you obey. “In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein” (vs. 6-7). Then it talks about offering an offering by fire. But remember, the day came first. Not the offering. The day is a day of a command to keep. The offering of an animal was the ceremony. And the seventh day is a holy convocation. Then he gives all the instructions beginning in verse 9, all the way down through verse 21 on how to count to Pentecost. We won’t go into that in detail. But if you want to know how to count to Pentecost, we have many tapes on it. We have two booklets showing how to count to Pentecost. We will be happy to send those to you. But nevertheless, when you get to the fiftieth day, the day of Pentecost, he says, “And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein:...” (vs. 21).

Now let’s come down here to verse 24. “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets,…” That is, the Feast of Trumpets. Now maybe you have never heard of the Feast of Trumpets. What does it mean? What does it picture? Well I’ll just tell you very quickly: it pictures the return of Christ to this earth.

Now let’s come here to verse 27. “…Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement:...” A day of being at-one with God. Which is special and above the Passover day, which pictures the sacrifice of Christ. “...It shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls,…” And “affliction” means you shall fast without eating food or drinking water. So this is on the tenth day of the seventh month. Now verse 32 says, “It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.” That’s why we know all days in the Scriptures begin at sunset.

Now let’s continue on here, verse 34. “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.” And that is a full seven days. “On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation…” So that is also called the Last Great Day. Now, “…It is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.” Now notice the summary here: “These are the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations,…” That’s what they are. They are annual Sabbath days. Now let’s read verse 38. “Beside the sabbaths of the LORD, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows,…” and so forth. What I want to point out here is he calls them “the Sabbaths.” Now remember where we began this segment was, that, “Verily, My Sabbaths you shall keep…” (vs. 34-38). These are the Sabbaths it is talking about.

Now let’s take a little survey in the Old Testament, and on into the New Testament, and let’s see which days that they kept. Now we find in the book of the Law or that is, in the book of Numbers, Numbers 9, that the children of Israel kept the Passover there. We also find in Joshua 5 that they kept the Passover there, and they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Now, all through the history of Israel, as we saw, going through this whole Sabbath series that we went through, whenever they left God they left off keeping the Sabbath and the holy days, and they went back to observing all the pagan things of the religions of the people around them. Now whenever God sent a judge to raise them back up, he brought them the laws of God and then they were obedient and kept the commandments as long as the judge lived.

Later when God instituted the kingship under Saul, and then later under David, then with Solomon He established the temple and gave all the rituals for the temple. And again, we find the whole history of the Jews, and all the children of Israel, was that they would go through cycles of keeping the commandments of God and then going back to their hearts’ desire of all the pagan religions around them. Whenever there was a revival they came back to God. We find in 2 Chronicles 30 that when Hezekiah brought back the children of Israel from all of their idolatry and all of their Sunday-keeping, and all of their Christmas-keeping, and all of the pagan things they were doing, that they kept the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Now let’s come to 2 Chronicles 35. And we find here’s King Josiah. King Josiah repented of his sins, made the people repent of their sins; made them covenant with God that they would keep His laws, keep His commandments, keep His Sabbath and His holy days. And we find beginning in 2 Chronicles 35:1 what Josiah did. “Moreover Josiah kept a passover unto the LORD in Jerusalem: and they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.” Whenever the people of God came back to God from their apostasy and from their sin, they came back to Sabbath-keeping, Passover-keeping, and holy day–keeping. And you find, if you read the rest of the chapter, that they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread with great joy.

Now let’s come to the New Testament. Because as astonishing as it may sound, there are more references in the New Testament to the feasts of God, to the Passover, than there are in the history of the kings of Israel. Now let’s go ahead, and we’ll see about Jesus Christ. Did Jesus ever sin? No. Did He keep the Sabbath? Yes. Did He keep the Passover? Yes. As a matter of fact, we will see that Jesus Christ is our Passover. Are we to follow His example and walk in His footsteps? Yes. Notice what Jesus did. Let’s come here to Luke 2, and let’s see where He and His family kept the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Now let’s begin here in verse 40. “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him. Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast” (Luke 2:40-42). So which days did Jesus keep? Let me just say right here: Jesus never kept Sunday as a weekly day to keep. Now since we will see that Pentecost falls on the first day of the week, He kept Pentecost, but He didn’t keep it because it was on the first day of the week. He kept it because that’s the day that God commanded it to be. And as we will see, one of the arguments about “the church began on the first day of the week,” is intrinsically a faulty argument, as we will see.

Now let’s continue on and see what else Jesus did. 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.” Now the Greek here means, “on the day of the weeks,” which is the day of Pentecost. So here we find Jesus keeping Pentecost in Nazareth, where He always kept the Sabbath; and Pentecost is called a Sabbath, though Pentecost is on the first day of the week when properly counted. That’s what Jesus kept.

Let’s come over here to Luke 22, and let’s see at the end of Jesus’ life. And of course, He was to become our Passover. But here in Luke 22, and let’s pick it up here, let’s come to verse 7. “Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat” (Luke 22:7-8). Jesus didn’t keep a “Lord’s Supper.” Jesus kept the Passover. And we find in John 13 that there was foot washing with it. And whenever the Passover by true Christians is held in the way that it should be, then there is foot washing and the partaking of the bread and the wine.

Now let’s come down here to verse 14. “And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. And He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you…” So that’s what He kept. Now verse 17, “And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is My body which is given for you: this do in [the] remembrance of Me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament [covenant]…” Not testament, covenant. And oh, you need to know about covenant law. That will open your mind and open your eyes as to what the New Covenant is really all about. Now I cover that a great extent in The Christian Passover book. This is the new covenant “…in My blood, which is shed for you.” (vs. 14-15, 17-20). And that has a greater and much more profound meaning than just “testament.”

Now let’s come on to the Gospel of John. As a matter of fact, the Gospel of John is really laid out according to the feasts of God. Let’s come here to John 2. And we find again the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which Jesus kept. And if we are going to walk in His footsteps, we are going to keep them. Now someone is surely going to say, “No. Jesus did that because He was under the Old Covenant.” Not so. Jesus was not under the Old Covenant when He was here on the earth. He was under a special covenant with God to be the sacrifice for all mankind. He was not under the Old Covenant. He kept them because God commanded them to be kept; and He kept all the commandments of God.

Now John 2:13, “And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,…” And that’s where He chased then all of the moneychangers and the oxen and everything, cleaned out the temple. Now verse 23, “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day [being the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread], many believed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man” (John 2:13, 23-25). Why? Because He was the Creator. And He knew the evil of human nature.

Now let’s come to John 6. Now I realize that we’re going through scriptures quite rapidly. But this is an overview. And I want the number of scriptures to have an impact upon you in what I’m saying, that you will clearly understand that there is no such thing as Christmas and Easter ever found in the Bible that we should keep. Now let’s come to John 6:4, “And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.” Then we find that Jesus gave the whole lesson, concerning that He was the bread of life. Let’s come here to verse 35. “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:4, 35). You have to eat His flesh and drink His blood, which is symbolized by the unleavened bread and the wine. And you have to have it properly, and do it properly according to the commandments of God. Otherwise, as Jesus said, “You have no life in you.” You cannot take the substitute that the world has done for the Passover - of Communion, the Lord’s Supper, and the Eucharist - you have no salvation through any of those. Only through Christ do you have salvation. And when you take the Passover you are signifying to God something very special that Jesus taught here in verse 57, where He says, “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.” And how did Jesus say that man is to live? By every Word of God. So we have the Passover here.

Now we come to chapter 7. Now we find that we have the Feast of Tabernacles. Now verse 2, “Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand.” Now his brothers, meaning His own physical brothers that He had, they didn’t believe in Him. And they told Him that He should show Himself openly, and He said no. He said, verse 8, “Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast;…” And some people say, “See? He didn’t keep it.” No, He kept it, but He didn’t go with them. That’s all He is saying here. “…For My time is not yet full come.” Now verse 14, “Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught” ( John 7:2, 8, 14). So He was there keeping it, but He didn’t want to be known openly because His time had not yet come.

Now let’s come over here to verse 37. So now, what do we have so far? What have we covered so far? We have covered in the New Testament, I want you to understand, in the New Testament we have covered Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and now Feast of Tabernacles. Now we’re coming to the Last Great Day. Let’s read it. “In the last day, that great day of the feast,…” That’s the beginning of the eight day, right as the sun was going down. “…Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy [Spirit] Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” (vs. 37-39). But what was Jesus keeping? Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles, Last Great Day. No hint of any of the so-called “Christian” festivals in the New Testament.

Now let’s go on. Let’s come here to John…well, John 13, I already mentioned that. We’ll bypass that. That talks about foot washing. That’s very important, but you get The Christian Passover book, and that will tell you all about foot washing. We have a whole chapter on it. But let’s come here to John 19, and let’s see something here concerning the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and what it is called. Now we know that Jesus was crucified on the Passover day, the 14^th of Nisan, the fourteenth day of the first month. And He died about 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Now verse 31, “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation,…” And most people think that means the weekly Sabbath, but it’s not. This is the annual Sabbath, as we will see. “…That the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,)…” Meaning, a holy day.

So the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread follows immediately after the Passover. We read back in Leviticus 23 on the fourteenth day of the month is the Passover, and the fifteenth day of the month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So this is what we’re dealing with right here. Christ died on the fourteenth, and the fifteenth was coming at sunset, and they wanted to get the body off the cross and into the grave. Because that day, that Sabbath day which was coming, was a high day, a holy day. So there you have it, all the way through the New Testament.

Let’s come to Acts 2. Now here, Acts 2:1, notice: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come,…” And this means in the Greek, “And when they were fulfilling the Day of Pentecost…”, which was on the first day of the week. But that had nothing to do with Sunday service, you see. Now what we really have here is this – the law was given on Pentecost at Mt. Sinai, and now the Holy Spirit is given on Pentecost at the temple, which then gives the ability for those who receive the Holy Spirit to keep the commandments of God in the Spirit. No longer in the letter, but in the Spirit. “…They were all with one accord in one place.” The first Christians were keeping Pentecost, a holy day of God. And that is the day that He gave the Ten Commandments on in the Old Testament. So if there are those who say that the church began on the first day of the week – which it did – and therefore that’s why they keep Sunday, and yet they reject the Law, they are rejecting the very reason and purpose for Pentecost. And they don’t have a clue as to what they are saying.

And then the Holy Spirit was poured out in power. And Peter preached a tremendous and powerful sermon on that day, commanded them all to repent. Let’s come down here to verse 36. Let’s understand how powerful this was. And you need to think about this in relationship to your life. What are you going to do with this new knowledge concerning the holy days of God? What will you do? Will you repent and change? Will your heart be pricked? Will the Spirit of God work with you to open your mind and your heart? Or are you going to get mad and angry and close your heart and your mind and reject it and say, “Well that’s not what I’ve been taught since I was a little kid.” Or, “I’ve been a Catholic all my life. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.” “I’ve been a Baptist all my life. Once a Baptist, always a Baptist.” Where is the repentance? Repentance means a turning, a repenting to God.

Now notice Acts 2:36, Peter said, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, Whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ [Master].” And why was He crucified? To bear your sins. That’s why you need to repent. “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart,…” Are you pricked in your heart? Is God able to move you? Are you able to respond to the Spirit of God and let your heart and your mind be open to the Spirit of God, to lead you to repentance like these people were? These were the first ones in the church. Do you think that you’re going to be in the Church of God in any other different way than these people were? Of course not.

“…And said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized…” (Acts 2:36-38). And baptism – you need to write in for a tape, “The Full Meaning of Baptism.” It’s far more than just some sort of religious ritual that you go through. It has deep and profound meaning. And it has the meaning of applying the sacrifice of Christ personally to you. You know, the way of God is so profound and so great and so magnificent. You need to understand. You need to have your mind opened. You need to repent. You need to be baptized. You need to receive the Spirit of God, which will give you the strength and understanding to live God’s way, to keep His commandments, and to love God with all your heart. This is vital and important information, salvational information. You can’t just reject it out of hand and go your way. You just can’t say, “Well, that’s what you believe, and that’s your religion.” Listen – if I preach to you the Word of God and the Word of God is something that God says is going to judge you, then know that you have heard the Word of God, and that’s what God wants you to listen to. And if I don’t teach you the Word of God, woe be to me. That’s just the way that it is. You need to understand that.

Now let’s go on. Let’s see a deliberate mistranslation in the King James version of the Bible…Acts 12. Now you see, we’re going in to what the apostles did. Now you’ll remember that we went through and did a survey through the book of Acts, concerning how that the apostles kept the Sabbath all the way through the book of Acts. Remember that? Now let’s come here to Acts 12 and let’s see something. “Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)” (Acts 12:1-3). Now Luke is writing this to record when the time was that they were keeping this, when this occurred. If they weren’t keeping the days of Unleavened Bread, why record that it was the Days of Unleavened Bread? If they were keeping Easter he would have said Easter. And this is where the translators put in the word “Easter,” as we’ll see in the next verse.

“And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people” (vs. 4). Now this is a blatant mistranslation. The Greek word here that was translated “Easter” is entirely incorrect. The Greek word here is pascha, and so translated “Passover” everywhere else in the Bible. So there is no basis for Easter-keeping at all by the church.

Now let’s come to Acts 20, and let’s see as Paul was traveling and in journeying what he was doing, what he was keeping, what days that he kept. Acts 20, now let’s read it here. Verse 6, “And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread,…” Why did they sail after the days of Unleavened Bread? Very simply and obviously, they were keeping the days of Unleavened Bread. And they were there with the brethren and teaching and preaching, and keeping those days. This is a powerful witness. Will you believe the Scripture? Will you believe the truth of God? Will you believe the things of God? Or will you believe a man who teaches you a religion?

Let’s come over here to Acts 24:14, and let’s understand something very profound concerning what the apostle Paul has said here. “But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy,…” Now the Jews called what he was doing with Christ heresy. What we do today in following Christ and keeping the Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Trumpets, and Atonement, and Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day, people call heresy. So after the way people call heresy, we can identify with Paul. “…So worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:…” Now did we read to you concerning the Sabbath and holy days in the Law? Yes. Did we read to you in the prophets concerning the Sabbath and Sabbath-breaking, and what happens because of that? Yes. Did Paul believe all of those? Yes. Did he teach all of those? Yes. Did he live all of those? Yes. Did he keep the commandments of God? Yes. He says, “…believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: and have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust” (Acts 24:14-15). Now that’s a profound statement, “believing all.” Will you believe all that is written in the law and the prophets, as well as the New Testament?

Now let’s continue on. Let’s see - here – let’s go to 1 Corinthians 16, and let’s see how the apostle Paul gauged his time. Listen – if anyone tries to convince you that Paul did away with the Sabbath and the holy days…now we are going to cover all of the difficult scriptures of Ephesians 2 and Colossians 2, and “the end of the law,” and all of those things in the series that I’m going to continue after this, “Refuting Sunday- Keeping.” We’re going to cover all of those. And we’re going to have a true and a proper explanation of each one of them from the Scriptures. But the question is, do you believe that Paul did away with the laws of God? Let’s ask another question: since God gave the Law, what man can do away with what God has given? No man.

And Jesus said, as we saw, “Don’t think that I’ve come to abolish or destroy the Law and the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily, I say to you, that till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass from the Law until all be fulfilled.” And then He goes on to say, “Furthermore, except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no way enter into the kingdom of God.” And He said, “Anyone that teaches against even the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-20, paraphrased). And probably indicating they won’t be there. So there are a lot of Sunday-keeping theologians that better really read the Word of God, and understand what it says. Because if they think they have salvation, they better get another thought coming, because the words of God tell them no, they won’t; unless you do what God says, there’s no salvation coming to anybody.

Now let’s come to 1 Corinthians 16, the last chapter in 1 Corinthians, and let’s pick it up here in verse 7. “For I will not see you now by the way; but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit. But I will tarry [or that is, remain] at Ephesus until Pentecost.” So Paul was there and kept Pentecost. He didn’t stay there until Pentecost to leave on the day of Pentecost, as some perverted, twisting-of-the-Scriptures teachers might want to say. He stayed until Pentecost to keep Pentecost at Ephesus. “For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Cor. 16:7-9). And yes, there will be many adversaries.

Now let’s read on here. “Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear: for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do. Let no man therefore despise him: but conduct him forth in peace, that he may come unto me: for I look for him with the brethren” (vs. 10-11). And so then the rest of is to continue on, and do forth, and keep the Word of God.

Now let’s come back here to 1 Corinthians 5, and let’s see a very profound and important section of Scripture. And we will see the implications of this. The reason this is important is because a lot of theologians will say that Passover, Unleavened Bread, and the holy days in the Bible were only for the Jews. The Gentiles don’t have to keep them. Not so. Let’s read it here. Now 1 Corinthians 5:6, “Your glorying is not good….” That is, the people there who were the brethren at the church of Corinth were allowing a man who was having incest with his stepmother, and they allowed him to continue attending. They were glorying in it. He said put him out. “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” Now this refers to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And during the Feast of Unleavened Bread leaven is a type of sin, and vanity, and human nature. And a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And that sin within the church was causing sin to be transferred to all the congregation, because they were agreeing with it.

Now notice what Paul says, verse 7, “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened [in Christ].” There are two meanings to that. They got rid of the leaven out of their houses to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread; and also in Christ, spiritually, they are unleavened. Now notice the last sentence here in verse 7, “For [that means ‘because’] even Christ our passover is [was] sacrificed for us:…” How can people not keep the Passover when that’s one of the very functions of Christ, as our Passover? It doesn’t make any sense, when you really get to the Scriptures and try and figure out all of these false doctrines, and the twisting and lying connivings of men.

“…For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:…” Now verse 8, “Therefore…” That means, because Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us, “…let us keep the feast,…” Now, is that doing away with any of the feasts of God? Not in the greatest stretch of any imagination! None whatsoever! He says, “Let us keep the feast.” And this was to Gentiles in Corinth. “…Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:6-8). So the Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures, then, how our lives become more sinless and unleavened in Christ. But the point is, he said, “Let us keep the feast.”

1 Corinthians 11, we won’t turn there, but he said, “In the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, and He took the wine, and He said, ‘Take, eat…’ He said, ‘Take, drink…’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25, paraphrased). All the way through the New Testament we have all these references to the holy days of God. There is not one centillionth of any credibility whatsoever that the pagan holidays of Sunday, and Christmas, and Easter, and New Years should be kept and observed by true Christians. Everywhere the Bible enforces the Sabbath and holy days of God. Now that you know this, what will you do? What will you observe? The choice is yours.