God’s Ten Commandments tell us to worship on the Sabbath, which according to the Bible, is what we call Saturday today. Most churches today, worship on Sunday. What happened?
This is some of the documented history of how the Papacy proudly changed God’s worship day in the Bible from the Sabbath, which is Saturday, over to Sun-day, the day on which the pagan sun worshipers bowed in reverence to the sun god.
Today friends we will need all the help we can get. We need the best help – we need God’s help!
Our wonderful heavenly Father, we sincerely thank You for this time together. We thank You for Your great goodness and Your unbelievable love for us. Today, we need Christian love. Please help us to lay aside any prejudices or preconceived ideas we may have. Help us to open our minds Father and give us Your Spirit as You guide us into truth. --- Please bless each of us, in the name of Jesus,
Amen.
Now before we get into our main topic, I want to show you some things in the Bible that are urgent for us to understand. We’re going to the book of Acts in the New Testament. In this story, Paul was talking about a group of church people in the city of Berea in Greece, and he said in...
“These (the Bereans), were more noble than those in Thessalonika, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and (notice it) they searched the scripture daily to see whether these things were so.”
Friends, I want you to make a habit of getting out your Bibles and checking the things I say, and go to your library and check the facts there also. Don’t believe it just because I say it. Check up on what people say, to see if it is correct or not.
Come over to...
Friends, Satan doesn’t want us to think too much.
A man was asked what he believed. He answered,
“I believe what my church believes.”
“Then what does your church believe?”
“Well,” he said, “my church believes the same as I believe.”
“Then what do you both believe?” He answered,
“We both believe alike.”
Friends, I hope you and I are not like that man. I hope you and I know what we believe in our churches, and why we believe it. And we can say it is right, because, and only because, we have been like the Bereans that Paul spoke about, who searched the scriptures daily ‘to see if these things were so’ or not.
In this next verse, Paul is writing to his friend Timothy, and he says to him in ….
The Living Bible says it this way, …
Friends, the majority of the preachers in the great churches today, preach what is known as …
They get up there in the pulpit and tell the people only the things they want to hear, the nice things. But the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 that the Word of God should actually be like a two-edged sword, cutting the hearers to the heart.
Friends we need to be jolted into reality by God’s Word. I’ve heard preachers say about some of the truths in God’s Word, …
“I know that is right but I can’t preach it because it will upset the people and I could easily get the sack. I could lose my job.”
So those preachers only tell half the truth. Well friends, I am so glad that I am a free man. No church pays my wages, and when I get up I can tell all the truth from the Bible without being afraid of losing my job.
Listen to this statement from the book …
“It is exceedingly difficult for many contemporary pastors to acknowledge the lack of scriptural support for their office simply because they are financially dependent upon it. As Upton Sinclair once said, ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’ ”
Now friends, after having introduced this message with a number of Bible verses, I’d like us now to go to the history books to continue this presentation that we titled …
Who Changed the Bible Sabbath to Sunday?
If you study the books of history, you’ll find that there’s a period of time that we call …
The Great Dark Ages (that spanned well over a thousand years from) 538 A.D. (through to) - 1798 A.D.
That was a dark time in the history of the world when Papal Rome tortured and killed millions of Protestants who would not follow the Papal party line. It was an awful era – the Great Dark Ages of this world’s history.
But this brings up a question that you’ve probably thought about yourself. ….
Why isn’t the Papacy persecuting Protestants as much today and forcing them to become Catholics and follow her ways?
I’ll say that again friends. Why isn’t the Papacy persecuting Protestants as much today and forcing them to become Catholics and follow her ways? I’ll tell you why friends. Listen carefully please.
The Papacy does not have to force Protestants to follow her today because almost every Protestant church on the face of this earth is now following her of their own free will. Listen to these statements. Lucius Ferraris writes in the Catholic book ----
“The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even Divine laws.”
Pope Nicholas (said)
“Wherefore if those things that I do be said, not to be done of man but of God, what can you make me but God? Wherefore no marvel if it be in my power to change time and times, to alter and abrogate laws to dispense with all things, yea with the precepts of Christ.”
The Pope says that he has the power to change the times and the laws.
Some years ago I presented a programme called ‘Dark Deeds Revealed’. In that programme we went to the Bible prophecies and the history books to reveal many of the awful atrocities that occurred during the Great Dark Ages.
The Bible prophecies in the book of Daniel and elsewhere show that the Papal power would try to change the times and laws.
I wish we had time to cover more of that here, but that presentation was over two hours in length. We’ll take just a handful of statements from that programme.
The statements I’m going to put up on the screen now will show how the Papacy has tried to change the times and the laws, and, they’ve done a pretty good job of it.
Here on the left are the Ten Commandments as originally given by God in the Bible, and on the right are the Ten Commandments as abbreviated in the Roman Catholic Catechisms such as Keenan’s and Geiermann’s Catechisms.
This abbreviated copy of the Ten Commandments is used by the Papacy for teaching the lay people, the ordinary folk who sit in the pews of the Catholic Churches. Incidentally, there are many many dear wonderful people who sit in Catholic Churches around the world, but we are not talking about the ordinary folk, we’re talking about the power above the ordinary people, the Papacy.
Let’s see if the Papacy has changed any of the ‘times’ or ‘the laws’.
On the left here are the original Ten Commandments as shown in our Bibles.
By the way, there are two huge commandments here. Number two about not making images and bowing down to them. And number four about God’s holy Sabbath day.
Now in the original Ten Commandments as given by God in the Bible and in the abbreviated Commandments of the Roman Catholic Catechisms, we notice that the first commandment is basically the same, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me." So far so good! – But what about the second commandment about not making any graven images and not bowing down to them?
Here on the right, the Papacy has absolutely left out the second commandment which tells us not to bow down to any graven image. In God’s Ten Commandments, on the left, it says, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments.”
And because the Papacy has taken on the idol worship from Pagan Rome, it has absolutely removed that commandment in its Catechism and shifted the rest of them up one place. For example, in God’s Commandments, commandment number five, is “Honour thy father and thy mother.” But in the Catechism it has been shifted up to number four.
So you say, well the Catholic system must only have nine commandments now, but no, they took the last one in God’s Commandments about coveting and split it into two to fix up the problem. They’ve taken this part, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife” from the tenth commandment and made it number nine. Then they’ve taken the rest of the tenth commandment by saying, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.” And that has been used as number ten.
And as you well now, they sure needed to cut out the second commandment about worshipping images because they bow down and kneel before so many images in the churches.
So they changed the law to suit their worship of images, but it also says friends, as we read earlier, that the Papacy said she has the power to even change times. Out of all of these Ten Commandments, friends, only one of them deals with time and that’s the fourth commandment, which says “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” And which day is that?
“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, (or because,) in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day (that’s Saturday). Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
And friends, the Papacy changed the day of worship from Saturday the seventh day to Sunday the first day of the week. Surprised? So was I when I first heard it. I used to keep Sunday. In fact there are millions of people who would die for the substitution because they have always believed it to be true. These are wonderful and genuine people.
And almost every Protestant Church on the face of this earth blindly follows the Roman Catholic Church as they break the fourth commandment by keeping Sunday the first day of the week instead of Saturday the seventh day. What does the Roman Catholic, Father Enright have to say...
“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 civilised world bows down to the command of the holy Catholic Church.”
Then another quote from the …
“The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”
Friends, not only did the Papacy change the Sabbath commandment to Sunday as the Bible prophecy said would happen, but she boasts about it and makes no secret of it whatsoever. Notice a couple of pages from...
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, in the Council of Laodicea (AD 336) transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.
Here’s another one from...
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.
Here’s that quote again from the
“The Catholic Church, for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”
Friends, the Bible Sabbath has been pushed aside by men.
God never changed it. Jesus never changed it. The disciples never changed it. We saw all that in the programme entitled ‘A DAY TO REMEMBER’.
This statement comes from the ----
Question: “Who gave the Pope authority to change a command of God?”
Answer: If the Bible is the only guide for the Christian, then the Seventh-day Adventist is right in observing Saturday with the Jew. But Catholics learn what to believe and do from the divine, infallible authority established by Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, which in apostolic times made Sunday the day of rest to honour our Lord’s resurrection on that day, and to mark off clearly the Jew from the Christian.”
Well that’s what they say. Now the rest of the statement...
“Is it not strange that those who make the Bible their only teacher should inconsistently follow in this matter, the tradition of the Church?”
Well those statements were from the Roman Catholic’s ‘Question Box Answers’....
Friends, the real question for us today is this one: Whose authority will you and I recognise in this matter?
Jesus also said in...
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
What will it be friends? If we love Him, we will keep His commandments. ---- Is it fair then to suggest that if we don’t keep His commandments that we don’t really love Him? ---- I think so! Just a little further down in that very same chapter, Jesus continued with these words also...
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is He who loves Me. And He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love Him and manifest (which means make known) Myself to him."
Do you see that? These verses are stating that the commandments of Jesus and the commandments of God the Father, are one and the same. There are not two sets of commandments – only one set – the Ten Commandments.
While I was in Sydney I visited St Mary’s Catholic Church at Hyde Park. A sticker was stuck on the wall of the confessional box, obviously not by a Roman Catholic. It’s a Bible text from …
“Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, when you refuse to do what I say?”
It’s a good question? And it’s a question that Jesus asks you and me too. Friends, what is it for you today? Truth or Tradition?
Friends, I absolutely believe that this is a salvation issue.
“He that is not with Me is against Me.”
Here, the old artist Frank Breaden has depicted these same points...
As Jesus said, “He that is not with Me … is against Me.”)
Friends, Jesus Christ died for us. Are we going to be on His side?
This programme has been difficult for me, but today, by God’s grace, I have discharged my duty to God and to you. I have given you the facts of history and the truths of God’s Word, the Bible.
Perhaps there is a strange conflict going on in your mind. New truth struggling with old tradition. You and I must choose between two great systems, the religion of man or the religion of Jesus.
In the Old Testament friends, there are the words of Joshua. In a time of great spiritual crisis, after presenting the truth to the people, he turned to those people and he said, in...
“You need to choose today who you will serve. (Then he went on to say) I know what I’m going to do. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
In view of this truth which cannot be contradicted, I pray today, that you will say, with all those who gave us their example in the Bible, that “As for me and my house, by God’s grace, we will serve the Lord.”
Loving Father and Almighty God, what man can deny the truthfulness of Your word? Here is evidence for the most cynical and the most sceptical if he comes with an open mind to Your Word.
Today we want to tell You that by Your grace and with Your help, we’re going to follow You. Even though it’s an unpopular course, we’re going to follow Your Word, and we’re going to follow Jesus who carried His cross to Calvary for us.
Dear Father, as we’re praying here with our heads bowed in Your presence, perhaps there are some here who will say with me, ‘By God’s grace, I’m going to follow Jesus and truth.’ Can you join me in that prayer friend? ---- ‘By God’s grace, I want to follow Jesus. I want to follow truth.’ God bless you.
Dear Father, bless these dear people. Bless the upraised hearts and save us when Jesus comes, because we have not followed man-made traditions, but we have followed Jesus and the Bible, out of our growing love for You Father, and Jesus.
Amen.
Friends, if you have been blessed and challenged by this message, then please take time now to send it on to your friends.
Thank You,
Ray Archer
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