The Sabbath was not Changed

I did not claim that Moody was legalistic.

as far as "LAW" -

Hint: this is part of the TEN COMMANDMENT sermon by Moody. Turns out to be "law".

The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth commandment begins withthe word remember, showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote this law on the tables of stoneat Sinai.How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away [FONT=&quot]with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]DWIGHT L. MOODY[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]The Ten Commandments:[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Exodus 20:2-17 [/FONT]​

.
The Fourth Commandment
Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:for in six days the LORD made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it.

​

THERE HAS BEEN an awful letting-down in this country regarding the Sabbath during the last twenty-five years, and many a man has been shorn of spiritual power, like Samson, because he is not straight on this question. Can you say that you observe the Sabbath properly?You may be a professed Christian: are you obeying this commandment? Or do you neglect the house of God on the Sabbath day, and spend your time drinking and carousing in places of vice and crime, showing contempt for God and His law? Are you ready to step into the scales?Where were you last Sabbath? How did you spend it?

I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding today as it ever was.I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing to set it aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place.

"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27)

It isjust as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was- in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age.

The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth commandment begins withthe word remember, showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote this law on the tables of stoneat Sinai.How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away [FONT=&quot]with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?

I believe that the Sabbath question today is a vital one for the whole country. It is the burning question of the present time. If you give up the Sabbath the church goes; if you give up the church the home goes; and if the home goes the nation goes. That is the direction in which we are traveling.[/FONT]

 

1. In Is 66:23 "From Sabbath to Sabbath" shall ALL MANKIND come before Me to Worship -- not saying that ONLY JEWS are members of "mankind".

Isaiah specifically speaks "form Sabbath to sabbath" for a future time--the Millennial Kingdom, not for this present age. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. You take Scripture out of context of course, and say that it applies to us having the Mark of the beast--but n the future.
You take Scripture in Isaiah 66, again out of context, and try to teach that the sabbath is for today, when the verse has no bearing on this day and age whatsoever. It is prophetic of another age.
You are willing to admit one is prophetic to avoid name-calling.
But you are not willing to see that Isaiah is prophetic because of your determination to assert that the legalistic adherence to the sabbath is for today.
You are inconsistent. Your position is very hypocritical.

 

I tire of your continuous cut and paste.
Why not cut and paste the relevant portions that you avoid to read; portions that I already quoted to you. Why do you ignore those?

 

Thank you Bob, for your very good answer to Bib's nonsense.

I just want to add something, if you don't mind.

Re:
<<In ALL of the annual Sabbaths – the day is selected by God – not man.>>

Yes, God is the Lawgiver also in this case.
But He commands man – the people – the priests of Israel – to determine the <<annual Sabbaths>> "according to their seasons" IN NATURE, FROM NATURE, THROUGH NATURE, as you well know by the priests' determining spring solstice in the first place, and next the first new moon after spring solstice WHICH DAY WOULD BE THE FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST MONTH AS WELL AS OF THE NEW YEAR.

Which – as you know better than I do – is the reason why the 'annual' or 'seasonal sabbaths' usually – mostly – do not coincide with God's Divinely fixed "Seventh Day Sabbath".

Also – just by the way – there were not that many <<annual Sabbaths>> so that one could speak of <<most of the annual Sabbaths>>.

There used to be three only annual 'feast days' that were kept and called 'rest days' or 'sabbaths', feast of unleavened bread's "first day", and the 'judgment feast', its first and seventh days the Israelites stayed in booths.

NO others. At least not in the Scriptures. Which is all that matters.

 

Yes, In Genesis 2:3 there is no EXPLICIT command to keep the Sabbath. But for him who has an ear to hear, there is the implicit – 'allegorical' if you like – and best of reasons for feasting Sabbaths, namely the redemptive DEEDS OF GOD ON AND OF “THE SEVENTH DAY” making it God’s—NO MAN’S—Sabbath Day forever after.

I know you dislike ‘allegory’, DHK, that’s why I rub it under your nose, to let you smell of God’s “blessing the Seventh Day”, his “sanctifying the Seventh Day”, his “FINISHING ALL THE _WORKS_ OF GOD”, God “WROUGHT” in Christ and “RESTED The Seventh Day” as the culminating achievement of “the exceeding greatness of his power (which) God IN HAVING RAISED CHRIST FROM THE DEAD, WROUGHT”.

Now what is incomprehensible for me, is that you look past what Protestants through the centuries as well as Roman Catholics centuries before them, taught and preached and proclaimed, which is, GOD’S REDEEMING DEEDS DONE—“WORKED=FINISHED=WROUGHT IN THE STRENGTH OF HIS POWER” in Genesis 3 from verse 8 on, like the ‘Seed-Promise’ and the ‘clothing in skins’ obviously of sacrifices God must have killed HIMSELF; and God’s GRACIOUS forbidding sinful man to eat of the tree of life and saving act of driving him out and preventing him to enter into God’s Rest or Place of Joy, “EDEN” as a sinner because he FIRST HAD TO BE REDEEMED IN AND THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.

What makes me numb and leaves me blank with amazement is that you – exactly as Bob Ryan and the SDAs – see absolutely NOTHING of God-in-Christ Jesus in the very two words, “REST”, or, “SABBATH”! Can it really mean NOTHING to either of you the FACT, GOD, and not man, “the day The Seventh Day from ALL, HIS, WORKS (works of God on and of the Seventh Day) RESTED”?

Amazing! The ultimate—the ONLY reason that “remains for the People of God in keeping the Sabbath-Rest-Day” is … “IF JESUS GAVE THEM REST”—which God gave them, right there in Genesis 2 in the words, “God the Seventh Day rested”; —which God gave them, right there in Genesis 3 exactly the same thing, in God’s DEEDS in and through Jesus the Messiah-Christ Saviour of his people.

This and "thus" is God giving commandment ... saving commandment ..."concerning THE SEVENTH DAY" Hebrews 4:4.

It is something else the day God in judgment gives commandment. Then it won't be to benefit or for the good of men, no doubt! Because God shall command against men -- against those men NOT OF GOD'S PEOPLE.

 

Isaiah 66 is about "the new earth" which is OUR PRESENT AGE according to 99% of normal Protestants, which they identify with "This the Thousand Years The First Resurrection".

I shall stick to this orthodoxy and conservatism although I believe this present age new earth of ours IS NOT FINISHED YET.

It will of course END with judgment day, and THEN only will Isaiah 66:23 be fulfilled completely and all the survivors of the judgment will come to worship God on the Sabbath Day and will see the carcasses of the disobedient and unbelievers lying across the face of the earth still.

Now DHK the anti-allegorical interpreter of the Scriptures resorts to allegory to refute allegory, copying and pasting the invention of the future ‘millennial age’.

Comfortable!

 

I say after this discussion we move on to debating circumcision, and then move straight into the animal sacrifices. Seems like the logical place to go from here.

This whole thread is an exercise in legalistic futility. It doesn't matter to salvation if one keeps the sabbath day... let alone which day one keeps it on.

 

Nobody said you do! Not I! I simply said we find VARIOUS different applications of the Sabbath law and that is indisputable.

Nobody said anything different. I simply said that God chose VARIOUS DATES and days of the week and that is indisputable.

Yes and all STRAW MAN arguments since I have NEVER denied a single one of them. Either bob and GE cannot read to well or they have simply run out of arguments and think repeating invalid arguments makes their position look better! It does not. What they beleive is wrong as it restricts what God does not restrict and thus condemns God's own VARIED and BROADER application which their position denies and condemns.

 

Originally Posted by BobRyan
In most of the annual Sabbaths there is no 7 day cycle at all for work.

In none of the annual Sabbaths do we find a way to substitute the annual Sabbath for the 4th commandment.

But not "applications of the 4th commandment". For that - there is only 1 day it is the 7th day of the weekly cycle - "in practice".

Which is where you are stuck - so you keep circling back to the annual Sabbaths given 2000 years after Gen 2:3 - the 4th commandment Sabbath.

And then you bend it to the point of trying to replace the 4th commandment with your "week day 1".

Hint - the Bible does not support that edit of the text.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Only if you are determined not to follow the details.

Interesting that in Rev 14 we have.

1. contrasting true worship to God vs 7 compared to worship of the beast in vs 9-10
2. Quotes from the 4th Commandment text in vs 73.
3. Contrasts the saints as those who "KEEP the Commandments of God and their faith in Jesus" vs 12 as opposed to those who worship the beast


And yet some argue that this chapter - cannot have anything to do with the 4th commandment controversy as if that is the logical conclusion?

The RCC singles out the 4th commandment as the "test" case for Catholicism vs Protestantism.

D.L. Moody singles out the 4th commandment as the issue for Christians who reject one of God's commandments.

Andy Stanley singles out the 4th commandment as the issue for Christians when it comes to the TEN Commandments.

The Baptist Confession of Faith - and the Westminster Confession of Faith affirm the continued authority of the 4th commandment much to the shock and surprise of many Christians that claim that either it is "not immoral to break the 4th commandment" or they claim that "it is wrong to KEEP the 4th commandment as God gave it"

Meanwhile James 2 says that to break one is to break them all.

And in 1Cor 7:19 Paul says "what matters is KEEPING the Commandments of God". and in Rom 3:31 "We establish the Law of God by our faith"
and in Heb 8 - the Jer 31:31-33 context for Law is written on the heart under the New Covenant

and 1John 2:3-6 (and 1John 5:2-4) claim that those who claim to know God and yet do not keep His commandments - have a huge problem.
Thus there is at least "some" evidence in favor of the idea that the 4th commandment will show up as an issue to be taken seriously.


in Christ,


Bob

 

Yes, that is exactly what I am determined to do.

Rom 7:6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.​

I have broken several of the commandments, therefore, I have broken ALL of the law. No amount of keeping the law can ever justify me. I can never, ever, ever be righteous by the law because I have broken the law. The murderer can't say to the judge, "but I kept all the other laws" and then expect to escape the punishment for the murder. The only way I can be righteous is by inheriting the righteousness of Christ through faith. Then, it will not be my righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ.

My flesh is condemned either way, and will not be made righteous. God has condemned all of my sin to my flesh, so that my spirit may be made righteous by the righteousness of Christ. Therefore, I am righteous in spirit, not in flesh. Therefore I must obey in spirit, and not in flesh.

Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.​

So the Bible tells me that I am a split person - the righteous living spirit within the dead, sinful flesh.

Rom 8:10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.​

The Bible also tells me that I cannot please God in my sinful flesh, but only faith pleases God.

Rom 8:5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.​

So the Bible tells me in Romans 7-8 that I am to view myself for who I am in the spirit and not for who I am in the flesh, and that I am to orient my MIND in such a way (not my flesh) as to see myself as the righteous version of myself who is in spirit, not the sinful person who is in flesh. Legalistic thinking, such as what you are proposing in keeping rigidly the sabbath days re-focuses the mind on the "things of the flesh" rather than on the righteous person you are in Christ. All you see is how unrighteous you are if you don't follow this law or that law. But I'm telling you that the Bible wants you to focus on the righteous person you are in the spirit, and that your righteousness is not of yourself or your own actions, but it is the righteousness of Christ.

Serve Him in spirit, not in the letter. To serve in the letter is to orient the mind on the things of the flesh and to forsake the grace of God, turning again to rely on yourself for righteousness.

Rom 4:13 For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.
14 For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified;

Gal 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.
4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.​

Galatians is Paul dealing with those Jews who said the Gentile believers had to follow The Law and be circumcised. This could just as easily extend to any part of The Law, including following the sabbath. If you feel the need to keep the sabbath to retain your salvation or justification, then you are fallen from grace, and you must keep the whole law to be saved (which is impossible, and therefore you are lost). By the way, if you have already sinned, it is already too late to keep the law.

God has written His law on our hearts now. If you feel compelled by God to keep a commandment, then by all means do so. If you feel the need to keep a sabbath day, then by all means do so. If you feel a need to keep it on Saturday, then by all means, do so.

But NEVER spy out someone else's liberty. Never inflict the law God has ask you to serve Him with which he has placed upon your heart upon someone else, for that is works based justification for MEN, and it focuses on the flesh and take's one's MIND off the spirit.

Gal 2:4 But it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage.
5 But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

Col 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—​

 

No such law in the Bible where the fourth commandment uses the words or demands the seventh day "of the week."

 

But not "applications of the 4th commandment". For that - there is only 1 day it is the 7th day of the weekly cycle - "in practice".

Which is where you are stuck - so you keep circling back to the annual Sabbaths given 2000 years after Gen 2:3 - the 4th commandment Sabbath.

And then you bend it to the point of trying to replace the 4th commandment with your "week day 1".

Hint - the Bible does not support that edit of the text.

Read the 4th commandment. It only references the 7th day of the week - not week day 1.

Even the Baptist Confession of Faith notices.

The bogus idea that there is such a thing as "pick your own 7th day" is not found in all of scripture.

Adam's first full day after being created - was THE Sabbath of Gen 2:3. Even the Baptist Confession of Faith notes that THE DAY made on Gen 2:3 is in fact the 4th Commandment Sabbath - the seventh day "Of the WEEK" according to . the Baptist Confession of Faith

Impossible to ignore.

They do that because there is no such thing as "the 7th day of something else" and no such thing as "whatever day you wish to call the 7th" in all of scripture. No - not ONE.

D.L. Moody also noticed this and points out that the command is "REMEMBER" in Ex - 20 because that day was already made holy in the Garden of Eden.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Legalism is in the mind of the offended.

The present exercise is meant to find out what the BIBLE says, whether the Sabbath was changed or not. You find the subject an offense and call it an exercise in futility. That is a pity.

The purpose of this discussion is NOT what you say it is, Whether if one keep the Sabbath Day or not, it saves one or not. That is why you find this discussion offensive. Stay with the subject and purpose of the study, is the only advice I can give you.

It is clear that what you regard unimportant, unnecessary and futile, the Bible finds important, necessary and fruitful. And quite enjoyable and practical for the Christian 'Communion of the saints' as the Confession goes ---in fact something vital that it CANNOT get along without. Or the logical consequence must be it was a stupid God who thought the Church could do without the Sabbath Day's observance.

 

I don't find the discussion offensive. I find it irrelevant and boring. It's like arguing whether our animal sacrifice altars should be 5 stones high or 6 stones high.... it doesn't really matter because it doesn't apply to the Christian.

My comments are to say "hey gentlemen -- is this really worth getting so worked up and questioning one another's mental and spiritual acumen over?"

 

You are not playing God, are you?

You have no right to give permission for anything. You are just like me, NOTHING!

You say God has written his law on your heart. OK. But He wrote nothing; He just plays games with your feelings -- vague urges, like, "Thou shalt dislike the Seventh Day Sabbath henceforth, since I have all the ages spoken nonsense to the Jews. Now you must just feel good about yourself ---your SELF with capital letters! Because that's the Law of LOVE I wrote on your heart: “Thou shalt love THYSELF", see, it's WRITTEN; written on your HEART!

You said <<after this discussion we move on to debating circumcision, and then move straight into the animal sacrifices. Seems like the logical place to go from here.

You’re wrong. The logical place to go from where you were going, is straight on to godlessness, lawlessness and faithlessness.

If God really has written His law on your heart, you will be compelled by God and not by how you feel, to keep not just any commandment, but follow HIS Commandment, Command, Law, WORD, Jesus Christ and WHEREVER HE, LEADS the Way who “IS THE WAY”. Then by all means possible, do so—because as you will immediately find out—He leads you AGAINST your feeling where He, wants you to FOLLOW HIM! Not where your feelings will take you to.

So, your ‘feel’ is a futile exercise. It’s useless and will lead you straight back to where you were before God wrote his Law on your heart … hell!
If you need to keep a sabbath day, you do need to! Therefore keep the Lord’s Sabbath Day, not one to your own liking or the vogue of Christiandom.

 

Col 2:16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—

 

Read yourself as if you read me. Then ask yourself, Isn't GE the guy who is getting worked up ... all for what? ... for his own 'finding the discussion offensive'! He is so boring HIMSELF he finds everybody else, boring.

 

Col 2:20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as,
“Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”
22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?
23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in fnself-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Legalism is a sign of spiritual immaturity.

 

Exactly!

But why isolate these words from their whole CONTEXT? You make it so <boring>!
Read the CONTEXT and take to heart Paul's ENTHUSIASM saying, "THEN THEREFORE do not you let anyone ---ANYONE in the world ---CONDEMN or judge or incriminate you, YOU ... BEING CO-RAISED TOGETHER IN CHRIST AND WITH CHRIST ... in eating and drinking of FEAST whether of months' it's SABBATHS' FEAST OF CHRIST THE SUBSTANCE!"

If Murray Perahia performs near you go listen and find out what it is to get the feeling and catch the beat!

That's how you should read Colossians 2 towards verse 16 and further on from verse 16. The BEAT is on "SABBATHS' FEAST" and the INTENSITY, " IS CHRIST THE SUBSTANCE", the SOUL'S "FOOD AND DRINK … CHRIST ... THE HEAD ...and NOURISHMENT".

Jesus Christ is the Substance of the eating and the drinking of those raised together with Him and in Him; He, the Head is the NOURISHMENT ministered. NOT THE LAW for heaven's sake!

But what do you, read into Colossians 2? COLD, DEAD, LETTER-LAW never intended or given one thought OR WRITTEN by Paul who wrote the passage.

When I was a young boy, I heard a sermon of guests at feast of a king. They had this huge table loaded with most wonderful dishes of food. But they were all tied to unmovable chairs with one hand free and spoons as long as the table was wide.

They sat there the feast day long and then were released, hungry and angry at the king. No one thought to feed the one opposite himself.

Do not read the Lord's Table like that. You could be satisfied with Christ from Colossians 2. But you leave the Feast of Christ unsatisfied and disgruntled at the Law that tied you like a criminal.