I listened once again to J. Vernon McGee’s recorded sermon “The Sabbath Day or the Lord’s Day – Which?” Of course the very title of his sermon implies clearly that the Sabbath is not the Lord’s Day, even though Jesus Himself said that He was Lord of the Sabbath, hence stating clearly that the Sabbath is, was and ever shall be the Lord’s Day. (See Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:27-28 and Luke 6:5.) And, in the passage in Mark’s gospel account, Jesus is quoted as saying the Sabbath was made FOR MAN, not merely for the Jew. It was sanctified and made holy time many centuries before the first Jew was even born!” In NO Bible passage is the first day of the week, or Sunday called “the Lord’s Day.” That is an invention of deceived men.
But do you want to know why I listened to Mr. McGee’s sermon about the Sabbath one more time? I had difficulty believing I had heard him right when he shouted “to observe the Sabbath today is to go back to paganism.” He then repeats himself, saying, “It’s to return to paganism, my beloved.” This blinded, deceived preacher shouts to the top of his lungs that Sabbath keeping by the Jews was paganism! How can you get any more blasphemous than that? Moses practiced paganism? God’s prophets of old were pagans? God is the author of pagan religion????
Satan is a master at what he does, for one can listen to a dozen of McGee’s sermons and find that he is right on point in many of his doctrinal statements, saying exactly what the Bible teaches in many areas. But many do not realize how Satan works his deceptions. He wraps a lie in a bundle of true statements. He draws one in to accepting someone as an anointed teacher of divine truth and then introduces a blatant lie, or falsehood, amidst the teaching and instruction of that revered pastor or preacher.
Don’t get me wrong. I feel certain that J. Vernon McGee really and truly believed God’s Sabbath was cancelled out and voided and replaced by Sunday observance. But when he shouted that “to observe the Sabbath today is to go back to paganism” he revealed himself to be speaking in the first person for Satan as that is a satanic statement for it makes God the author of paganism! A deceived man doesn’t know he is deceived and is representing Satan in much of what he says and teaches.
The average church-goer has little hope of escaping from spiritual deception for the average professing Christian really doesn’t study the scriptures in depth. When the pastor turns to a passage and asks the congregation to turn with him to that text and they read it together how can they be deceived? No scripture can be isolated from all other scriptures, and unless one knows the Word of God intimately well they might think a passage is saying one thing when it is saying something entirely different. The pastor doesn’t mean to deceive his congregation. He really and truly believes he is saying what the Bible says on a given matter. The Baptist pastor’s sermon that Sunday morning is “Once Saved, Always Saved,” but across town at the First Pentecostal Church their pastor’s sermon is “How One Can Lose Their Salvation!” Both are decent men, clean living, good husbands and fathers, but one of them is deceived and teaching false doctrine to his congregation. That’s WHY James cautioned that not many should seek to become pastors and/or teachers of the Word of God. Their responsibility is profound and one does not come into a good understanding of Bible doctrine by attending some denomination’s Bible college. They just become indoctrinated into that particular denomination’s beliefs.
Christ’s Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley