Well, I’ll say it again: the average believer, even the average preacher isn’t a deep thinker at all. They just aren’t PERIOD.
Case in point: Those who have a fair understanding of the truths contained in the writings of the two prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah must admit that the one sin that angered God exceedingly was the sin of sabbath violation. It was the sin, you might say, that broke the camel’s back. Those who have a fair understanding and knowledge of the four gospel accounts will agree that God finally had gotten through to His people regarding the sacredness of His sabbath. They now finally, after centuries of careful instruction, saw how jealous God was of His sabbath and had begun keeping it religiously, so much so that they even forbid doing good works on the sabbath! In these four gospel accounts, Jesus bends over backwards and risks His life to show that it was perfectly alright with God if His people did good works on the sabbath.
Now here is what the shallow thinker wants you to believe: Just when God’s people finally get into the habit of sabbath keeping God suddenly, and without any warning whatsoever, switches it on them, making the day of the sun His new sabbath!!!!
I am to believe that God starts His church off on the worst possible footing. At that time, in the Roman Empire, which included Judea and Galilee, Sunday was a day sacred to all Roman worshipers of the sun, and a day anathema to the Jew as any kind of “holy” day. And I am to believe that God now adopts the day of the sun god as His new sacred sabbath and does so in Jerusalem thereby instantly alienating any Jews that had come to believe Jesus just might be the promised Messiah!!! Satan’s deceptive powers are staggering!
Yes, I DO get a bit testy with preachers who ignorantly lead unsuspecting, well-meaning believers into embracing gross error, encouraging them to spurn God’s holy sabbath and adopt an ancient Roman custom, a custom going all the way back to pagan Egypt. They will answer to Jesus Christ someday for what they have done and their smooth speeches and pleasant smiles will not serve them very well at that moment. God have mercy on their ignorance.
Satan’s blinding POWER is little understood even by most professing Christians. The “first day of the week” (Sunday) is mentioned eight times in the New Testament: Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2 and 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1 and 19; Acts 20:7 and I Corinthians 16:2. Six of these instances merely state that it was the first day of the week when Jesus was discovered missing from the tomb or that the disciples were hiding from the Jews on that day lest they be arrested and killed also. One is left with only two instances mentioning the first day of the week as proof God’s eternal sabbath had been abolished and Sunday was now a “holy” day – Acts 20::7 and I Corinthians 16:2). Acts 20:7 merely states that since Paul was advertising the fact that he was departing that area never to return it just so happened that it was on the first day of the week when the Christians in the area of Troas were able to finally gather themselves together to see and hear Paul preach one last time. Nothing is said about that day being a new holy day or the Christian sabbath. Likewise with I Corinthians 16:2. The first order of business for the first day of the week, after the sabbath had passed, was for the Corinthians to harvest and gather together emergency food for the starving Christians in Jerusalem. No mention is made of that day being a day of worship or rest. It is clearly viewed as the first day they are able to return to work in the fields and gather emergency rations for those in need in Jerusalem. See Acts 11:27-30 with Romans 15:25-28).
Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley