One in Messiah Congregation
Shabbat Shalom
August 16, 2008
God has His own calendar
We are in the 5th
month, 14th day
Judaism made up the name AV
and they say they have a civil year and religious year. They say AV is the
eleventh month of the civil year, and fifth month of the religious year.
The fifth month has "No Name" in Scripture,
And the Lord only has "ONE NEW YEAR, ONE CALENDAR".
Deut.
11 [12] A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon
it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.
--------------------
*** Next week, Lord willing,
we will be in our own building.
----------------------
Torah Portion
V' ET' CHANAN (and I
besought) åÈàÆúÀçÇðÌÇï
Deut., chapters 3
to 7 and Is. 40
Deut.
4 [2] Ye shall not add unto the word which
I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the
commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
All religions, including
Judaism, Catholicism and the Protestants changed the "Word of the
Lord"
------------------
A Psalm for the Sabbath Day
Pss. 92
[1] It is a good thing to
give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High:
[2] To shew forth thy lovingkindness
in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,
[3] Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the
psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.
[4] For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the
works of thy hands.
[5] O LORD, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts
are very deep.
[6] A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.
[7] When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity
do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:
[8] But thou, LORD, art most high for evermore.
[9] For, lo, thine enemies, O LORD, for, lo, thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity
shall be scattered.
[10] But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.
[11] Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall
hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me.
[12] The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a
cedar in Lebanon.
[13] Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the
courts of our God.
[14] They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and
flourishing;
[15] To shew that the LORD
is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
------------------------
Exodus 20: 8-11
The seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation
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.
Did you remember?
Here we can see that God tells us to remember the
Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
This tells us that they had known about the
Sabbath before. We can also see that the entire day is to be kept holy to the
Lord. No work is to be done by anyone in your entire household. It is a holy convocation, a day to congregate with fellow believers.
Lev.23
[2] Speak unto the
children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim
to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.
[3] Six days shall work be done: 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.
----------
Let's talk about the six days you are to work. Don't
forget the Lord.
Havdalah
Havdalah is Hebrew for separation. It refers to separating the sacred from the
ordinary, the sacred being the Sabbath day and the ordinary being the other
days of the week.
The Havdalah
service formally ends the Sabbath day and ushers in the regular week when we are once again engaged in our
worldly concerns. We live in a world of opposites.
At the end of the Sabbath we are acutely aware of
the tensions between these worlds, being the spiritual and the carnal worlds.
--------------
"separate yourselves"
James 1
[27] Pure religion and undefiled before God and the
Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in
their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
2 Cor. 6
[14] Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
[15] And what concord hath
Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that
believeth with an infidel?
[16] And what agreement hath
the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of
the living God; as God hath said, I will
dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people.
[17] Wherefore come out from
among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and
touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,[18] And will be a Father
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith
the Lord Almighty.
[20] But I say,
that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and
not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
[21] Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be
partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of
devils.
[22] Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are
we stronger than he?
[23] All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all
things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.
[26] For such an high priest became us, who is
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than
the heavens;
Eph. 5
[11] And have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them
[12] For it is a shame even to speak of those
things which are done of them in secret.
Exod. 33
[16] For wherein shall it be known here that I
and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it
not in that thou goest with us? so
shall we be separated, I and thy people, from
all the people that are upon the face of the earth.
Lev. 20
[24] But I have said unto
you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a
land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD
your God, which have separated you from other people. [25] Ye shall therefore
put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and
clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by
any manner of living thing that creepeth on the
ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.
Neh. 9
[2] And the seed of Israel
separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins,
and the iniquities of their fathers.
Neh. 13
[3] Now it came to pass,
when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all
the mixed multitude.
Prov.18
[1] Through desire a man,
having separated himself, seeketh
and intermeddleth with all wisdom.
Matt. 25
[32] And before him shall be
gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a
shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:[33] And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the
goats on the left.
Rom. 1
[1] Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
Prov. 1
[10] My son, if sinners
entice thee, consent thou not.
[11] If they say, Come with
us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily
for the innocent without cause:
[12] Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go
down into the pit:
[13] We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:
[14] Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:
[15] My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their
path:
[16] For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
[17] Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
[18] And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily
for their own lives.
[19] So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof
Ezra 6:
21 And the children of Israel, which were come
again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto
them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the LORD God of
Israel, did eat,
22 And kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy: for the LORD had
made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them, to
strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.
Ezra 8
Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to
seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our
substance.
22 For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to
help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king,
saying, The hand of our God [is] upon all them for good that seek him; but
his power and his wrath [is] against all them that forsake him.
23 So we fasted and besought our God for this: and he was intreated
of us.
And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them,
Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.
11 Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his
pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people
of the land, and from the strange wives.
Col.2:
[1] For I would that ye knew what great
conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not
seen my face in the flesh;
[2] That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love,
and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the
acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Messiah /
Christ;
[3] In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
[4] And this I
say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
[5] For though I be
absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying
and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of
your faith in Christ.
[6] As ye have therefore received Messiah Yeshua
/ Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
[7] Rooted and built up in him, and stablished
in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
[8] Beware lest any man spoil you through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of
the world, and not after Messiah / Christ.
[9] For in him dwelleth
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
[10] And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality
and power:
[11] In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of
Christ:
[12] Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him
through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
[13] And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all
trespasses;
[14] Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,
which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
[15] And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
[8] Beware lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Messiah / Christ.
[17] Which are a shadow of
things to come; but the body is of Christ.
[18] Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and
worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
[19] And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands
having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth
with the increase of God.
[20] Wherefore if ye be dead with Messiah
/ Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world,
are ye subject to ordinances, ( of men )
[21] (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
[22] Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
[23] Which things have indeed a shew of
wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
[17] And their word will eat as doth a
canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;[18] Who concerning the truth have erred, saying
that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
-------------------
Who changed the 4th Commandment - the Sabbath?
Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions about Sunday
The vast majority of Christian churches today
teach the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, as a time for rest
and worship. Yet it is generally known and freely admitted that the early
Christians observed the seventh day as the Sabbath.
How did this change come
about?
History reveals that it was decades after the
death of the apostles that a politico-religious system repudiated the Sabbath
of Scripture and substituted the observance of the first day of the week.
The following quotations, all from Roman Catholic sources, freely
acknowledge that there is no Biblical authority for the observance of Sunday, that it was the Roman Church that changed the Sabbath to the
first day of the week.
In this study, there are quotations from many
Protestants. Undoubtedly all of these noted clergymen, scholars, and writers
kept Sunday, but they all frankly admit that there is no Biblical authority for
a first-day sabbath.
--------------------------
Roman Catholic Confessions
James Cardinal
Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.
"But you may read the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification
of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day
which we never sanctify."
Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.
"Question: Have you any other way of proving
that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
"Answer: Had she not such power, she could
not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could
not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for
the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no
Scriptural authority."
John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and
Academies (1 936), vol. 1, P. 51.
"Some theologians have held that God
likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday
for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly
held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or
days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first
day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days."
Daniel Ferres, ed., Manual of Christian Doctrine (1916), p.67.
"Question: How prove you that the Church
hath power to command feasts and holy days?
"Answer. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into
Sunday, which Protestants allow of, and therefore
they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking
most other feasts commanded by the same Church.'
James Cardinal
Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore (1877-1921), in a signed letter.
"Is Saturday the seventh day according to
the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of
the week and did the Church change the seventh day -Saturday - for Sunday, the
first day? I answer yes . Did Christ change the
day'? I answer no!
"Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons"
The Catholic
Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons,
Sept. 23, 1893.
"The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine
mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."
Catholic Virginian Oct. 3, 1947, p. 9, art. "To Tell You the
Truth."
"For example, nowhere in the Bible do we
find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from
Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy
the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week,
Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us
by the[Roman Catholic] church outside the Bible."
Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Converts
Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957), p. 50.
"Question: Which is the Sabbath day?
"Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.
"Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead
of Saturday?
"Answer. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because
the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."
Martin J. Scott,
Things Catholics Are Asked About (1927),p. 136.
"Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that
worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday .... Now the Church ...
instituted, by God's authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church,
by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the
Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have
for Sunday."
Peter R. Kraemer,
Catholic Church Extension Society (1975),Chicago,
Illinois.
"Regarding the change from the observance of
the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to
the facts:
"1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible
as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance
of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.
"2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as
the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the
authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted
by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the
ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the
Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this
law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the
unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of
Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws.
"It is always somewhat laughable,
to see the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the
observance of Sunday, of which there is nothing in their Bible."
T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb.
18,1884.
"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone
who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy.
There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church
alone. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic
Church says: 'No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you
to keep holy the first day of the week.' And lo! The entire civilized world
bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic
Church."
------------------------------
Protestant Confessions
Protestant theologians and
preachers from a wide spectrum of denominations have been quite candid in
admitting that there is no Biblical authority for observing Sunday as a sabbath.
Anglican/Episcopal
Isaac Williams,
Plain Sermons on the Catechism , vol. 1, pp.334, 336.
"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 that we observe many other things, not because the Bible,
but because the church has enjoined it."
Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments , pp.
52, 63, 65.
"There is no word, no hint, in the New
Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday .... into
the rest of Sunday no divine law enters.... The observance of Ash Wednesday or
Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday."
Bishop Seymour,
Why We Keep Sunday .
**** We have made
the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on
the authority of the one holy Catholic Church. ****
Baptist
Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a paper read before a New York ministers'
conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner , Nov.16, 1893.
"There was and is a commandment to keep holy
the 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.
"To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus,
during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them
upon the Sabbath question . . . never alluded to any transference of the day;
also, that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was
intimated.
"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday
did come into use in early Christian history . . . . But what a pity it comes
branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god,
adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy
to Protestantism!"
William Owen
Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day , p. 49.
"There was never any formal or authoritative
change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day
observance."
Congregationalist
Dr. R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments (New York: Eaton &Mains), p.
127-129.
" . . . it is quite clear that however rigidly or
devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath - . . 'Me 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."
Timothy Dwight,
Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Ser. 107, vol. 3, p. 258.
" . . . the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the
Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath."
Disciples of
Christ
Alexander
Campbell, The Christian Baptist, Feb. 2, 1824,vol. 1. no. 7, p. 164.
"'But,' say some, 'it was changed from the
seventh to the first day.' Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor
could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason
assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can
be changed! It is all old wives' fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath
from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august
personage changed it who changes times and laws ex
officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.'
First Day Observance , pp. 17, 19.
"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 in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a
change."
Lutheran
The Sunday Problem , a study book of the United Lutheran Church (1923),
p. 36.
"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 that the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one
with the other, but for a time celebrated both."
Augsburg
Confession of Faith art. 28; written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther,
1530; as published in The Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
Henry Jacobs, ed. (1 91 1), p. 63.
"They [Roman
Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, a shaving been changed into the
Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems. Neither is there any
example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day.
Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of
the Ten Commandments!"
Dr. Augustus Neander, The History of the
Christian Religion and Church Henry John Rose, tr. (1843), p. 186.
"The festival of Sunday, like all other
festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the
intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far
from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath
to Sunday."
John Theodore
Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday , pp. 15, 16.
"But they err in teaching that Sunday has
taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the
seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel .... These churches err in
their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week
in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that
effect."
Methodist
Harris Franklin Rall, Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p.26.
"Take the matter of Sunday. There are
indications in the New Testament as to how the church came to keep the first
day of the week as its day of worship, but there is no passage telling
Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that
day."
John Wesley, The
Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., John Emory, ed. (New York: Eaton &
Mains), Sermon 25,vol. 1, p. 221.
"But, the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, he [Christ]
did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any part of
this. This is a law which never can be broken ....
Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages;
as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to
change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable
relation to each other."
Dwight L. Moody
D. L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting (Fleming
H. Revell Co.: New York), pp. 47, 48.
The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been
in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,'
showing that the Sabbath already existed when God Wrote
the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment
has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still
binding?"
Presbyterian
T. C. Blake, D.D.,
Theology Condensed, pp.474, 475.
"The Sabbath is a part of the decalogue - the Ten Commandments. This alone forever
settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution . . . . Until,
therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the
Sabbath will stand . . . . The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of
the Sabbath."
CATHOLICISM SPEAKS
"Sunday is a
Catholic institution", and its
claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles . . . From
beginning to end of scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the
transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the
first."-- Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia,
August, 1900.
Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the
[Roman Catholic] Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought
logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath."--John
Gilmary Shea, in the "American Catholic
Quarterly Review," January 1883.
"It is well to remind the Presbyterians,
Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support
them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the
Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of
the Catholic Church."--Priest Brady, in an
address, reported in the Elizabeth, N.J. "News" of March 18, 1903.
"Question
--Have you any other way of proving that the [Catholic] Church has power to
institute festivals of precept [to command holy days] ?"
"Answer -Had
she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern
religionists agree with her: She could not have substituted the observance of
Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh
day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."--Stephan Keenan, "A Doctrinal Catechism," p. 176.
"Reason and common sense demand the
acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and
the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday.
Compromise is impossible."-- The Catholic
Mirror," December 23, 1893.
"God simply gave His [Catholic] Church the
power to set aside whatever day or days, she would deem suitable as Holy Days.
The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time
added other days, as holy days."--Vincent J.
Kelly, "Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations," p. 2.
"Protestants . . . accept Sunday rather than
Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the
change . . . But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that in accepting
the Bible, in observing the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the
spokesman for the church, the Pope."--"Our
Sunday Visitor," February 5, 1950.
"We hold upon this earth the place of God
Almighty."--Pope Leo XIII, in an Encyclical
Letter, dated June 20, 1894.
Not the Creator of the Universe, in Genesis
2:1-3,--but the Catholic Church "can claim the honor of having granted man
a pause to his work every seven days"--S.C. Mosna, "Storia della Domenica," 1969, pp.
366-367.
"The Pope is
not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ Himself,
hidden under veil of flesh."--"The Catholic National,"July
1895.
"If Protestants would follow the Bible, they
should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following
a law of the Catholic Church."--Albert Smith,
Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a
letter dated February 10, 1920.
"We define that the Holy Apostolic See [the
Vatican] and the Roman Pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world."--A
Decree of the Council of Trent, quoted in Philippe Labbe and Gabriel Cossart, 'The
Most Holy Councils," Vol. 13, col. 1167.
"It was the Catholic Church which, by the
authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest [from the Bible Sabbath]
to the Sunday . . . Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an
homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic]
Church."--Monsignor Louis Segur, "Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today," p. 213.
"We observe Sunday instead of Saturday
because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to
Sunday."--Peter Geiermann,
CSSR, "A Doctrinal Catechism," 1957 edition, p. 50.
"We
Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy
instead of Saturday as we have for every other article of our creed, namely,
the authority of the Church.
...whereas you who
are Protestants have really no authority for it whatever; for there is no
authority for it [Sunday sacredness] in the Bible, and you will not allow that
there can be authority for it anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact,
follow tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to be a part of
God's word, and the [Catholic] Church to be its divinely appointed guardian and
interpreter; you follow it [the Catholic Church], denouncing it all the time as
a fallible and treacherous guide, which often 'makes the commandments of God of
none effect' quoting Matthew 15:6] ."--The Brotherhood of St. Paul, "The Clifton
Tracts," Vol. 4, tract 4, p. 15.
"The Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right
of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her founder, Jesus Christ.
The Protestant claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith,
has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh-day Adventist
is the only consistent Protestant."--"The
Catholic Universe Bulletin," August 14, 1942, p. 4.
-----------------
All religions, including Judaism, Catholicism and the Protestants changed
the "Word of the Lord"
Deut.
4 [2] Ye shall not add unto the word which
I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the
commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Let's try our best in our life time to restore the the
Word of the Lord
Shalom