The Name of YHWH — Truth Hidden in Plain Sight Introduction Throughout Scripture, the Creator reveals His personal Name. Many people read over it without realizing it because most English Bibles replace it with titles like “LORD” in all capital letters. Yet the Name appears nearly 7,000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. This study explores: What the Name is Why it was hidden in translations Why the Name matters How believers honored the Name in Scripture 1. The Creator Revealed His Name Exodus 3:13–15 When Moses asked what Name he should give to Israel, Elohim answered: “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, YHWH Elohim of your fathers... this is my name forever.” The Hebrew letters are: יהוה Often represented in English as: YHWH This is called the Tetragrammaton (“four letters”). 2. The Name Was Not Originally “LORD” In many English Bibles: “LORD” (all caps) replaces YHWH “God” sometimes replaces Elohim But in the original Hebrew text, the Name was written plainly thousands of times. Example: Psalm 83:18 “That men may know that thou, whose name alone is YHWH, art the most high over all the earth.” Many translations replace the Name with “LORD,” hiding what the verse actually says. 3. The Third Commandment Is About the Name Exodus 20:7 “Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy Elohim in vain…” The commandment does not say: “Do not know My Name” “Do not say My Name” Instead, it warns against misusing or emptying the Name of meaning. 4. YHWH Wants His Name Remembered Exodus 3:15 “This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” The word “memorial” means something remembered and proclaimed. Psalm 68:4 “Sing unto Elohim… extol him by his name YAH…” “Yah” is the shortened poetic form found throughout Scripture. 5. The Prophets Declared the Name Isaiah 42:8 “I am YHWH: that is my name…” Jeremiah 16:21 “They shall know that my name is YHWH.” The prophets repeatedly emphasized the Name instead of hiding it. 6. The Messiah Came in His Father’s Name John 5:43 “I am come in my Father’s name…” John 17:6 “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me…” The Messiah did not hide the Father’s Name; He revealed it. 7. Why Was the Name Hidden? Historically, some Jewish traditions avoided pronouncing the Name out of fear of misuse. Later translators followed this tradition and substituted: LORD GOD This tradition became so common that many readers never realized a personal Name was there. 8. Evidence Hidden in Plain Sight Even modern words preserve parts of the Name: HalleluYah Means: “Praise Yah” Names in Scripture also contain the Name: Isaiah (YashaYahu) Jeremiah (YirmeYahu) Elijah (EliYah) The Name was woven throughout biblical language and culture. 9. Calling Upon the Name Joel 2:32 “Whosoever shall call on the name of YHWH shall be delivered.” Romans 10:13 Paul quotes Joel, showing the importance of the Name continued into the New Testament. 10. Conclusion The Name of YHWH was never removed from Scripture originally. It was hidden in many translations through substitution traditions. The Bible teaches: His Name is eternal His Name is to be remembered His people proclaimed His Name The Messiah revealed His Father’s Name Truth about the Name has been in plain sight all along. Key Scriptures for Further Study Exodus 3:13–15 Exodus 20:7 Deuteronomy 6:4 Psalm 68:4 Psalm 83:18 Isaiah 42:8 Jeremiah 16:21 Joel 2:32 John 5:43 John 17:6 Romans 10:13

❤️HOW TO KNOW GOD'S WILL FOR IMPORTANT DECISIONS IN YOUR LIFE. Part 2 of 6. God’s Basic Will for Every Christian. Continued. The Holy Spirit is for the purpose of enabling us to become “fruitful in every good work” (Col. 1:10), and this Jesus said, comes not by "doing," but by "dying." Until we learn this lesson, we may work our heads off in religious efforts and still never really be fruitful. God does not call us merely to do "good works" – every Christian is capable of this– but His will for us is that we should become fruitful in every good work. We can do good works and still not be moving in His will. Good works are acceptable in the sight of God only to the extent they are in harmony with His will and under His direction. The case of Saul is a perfect example of this fact. God had sent King Saul against the Amalekites commanding him to destroy utterly both man and beast because the Amalekites had ruthlessly attacked Israel when she had first come out of Egypt. In disobedience Saul spared King Agag alive and kept the best of the sheep and oxen for the purpose of offering sacrifices unto the Lord. Now, God had commanded the Israelites through Moses to worship Him with sacrifices and burnt offerings as King Saul well knew. Certainly Saul's intentions were good in his desire to offer sacrifices unto the Lord, but God rejected him from the kingship of Israel nevertheless, saying, through Samuel, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams ... Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king" (1 Sam. 15:22-23). In Matthew 7:21 Jesus declared, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven." He then makes clear His meaning in verses 22-23 stating that many who are engaged in performing "good works," will, nevertheless, be rejected at the return of Christ because they were not doing the "will of God." A good deed does not necessarily make one acceptable to God merely because it results in good being done to someone else; our works are acceptable to God only to the extent they are in harmony with the will of God and a fulfillment of His purpose. God has not called us merely to do good works, but to do His will and move under the direction of His Spirit. We must be willing to resign from the delusion of religious commotion and be still, patiently waiting upon Him as He teaches us how to become sensitive to His voice, in order that He might make us to be "fruitful in every good work." The Spirit is calling us to be crucified with Christ, for it is on the cross that He teaches us how to grow quiet in order to hear His voice; and it is here that He rids our hearts of all the wrong notions about God's will for our lives and how He intends to fulfill His greater purpose through the Body of Christ in this end of the age. It is upon the disciple's return to Calvary, when he has been crucified with Christ, that the Spirit will then begin to teach him how to- 3. Speak to the Mountain. And on the morrow, when they were center from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a tree afar off having leaves, he came, if happily He might find something therein: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it; No man eat fruit of you hereafter forever. And his disciples heard it. And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which you cursed is withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For truly I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be removed, and be cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he says. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them (Mark 11:12-14, 20-24). The importance of faith in the life of the Christian is emphasized again and again in God's Word, for we are told that "without faith it is impossible to please him" (Heb. 11:6), and "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). The Christian has been called to walk by faith and to live a life of total trust in God. Sadly, however, the faith of the average Christian rises little above that of the world generally. Doubt and unbelief in the life of a Christian constitutes disobedience to the revealed will of God Who commands us to have faith and to trust Him implicitly in all things without reservation. Christians have an abundant inheritance provided for them by Christ's redemption. They are rich spiritually, materially, and physically, but too few are aware of this fact, believing instead that they are not to receive any of their 'inheritance now, or benefit from it in the present life, but only in the world to come. The Scriptures, on the contrary, declare that our inheritance belongs to us now, for God has promised that "all things are yours... whether the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours" (1 Corinthians 3:21-22). Healing, for example, has been provided for the believer and promised to him in God's Word (Isa. 53:4-5; Mt. 8:16-17; Mk. 16:18, James 5:14-15). It should be obvious that such a promise has no meaning unless it is valid here and now, for the believer will not need healing in the hereafter, inasmuch as he will not be subject to sickness. And so it is with almost all God’s promises-they are for the present, for it is now, in this life, that we have need of food, clothing, shelter, healing, health, protection, deliverance from fear, oppression, and so on. The Scriptures are filled with divine assurances, rights, privileges, blessings, and promises given to the believer whereby God has made provision for our every spiritual, physical, and material need, as well as for the accomplishment of the work He has commissioned His Church to do in the fulfillment of His will. All these provisions and blessings are available to the extent that we are willing to press through by faith and appropriate them. Moreover, if we are willing to meet the conditions, then we do not have to beg or persuade Him to fulfill His promises to us, for God assures us that He has already said "yes" to every promise He has made (2 Cor. 1:20), and that He does not go back on His word (Num. 23:19). It is sad to see some Christians who have accepted this deeper message who, nevertheless, have no real faith to sustain them in it, teaching the same errors as the institutional churches that an important part of our crucifixion is the absence of material blessings and the acceptance of sickness and pain. Such a view is completely out of harmony with the Word of God, for healing and the promise of the supply of all our needs have been provided in the atonement, and promised again and again in the scriptures. They are to be appropriated by faith as a part of our inheritance. Failure to ask for healing when one is sick, and to believe for God's daily provision for our temporal needs, is to ignore His promises, frustrate His will and purpose for our lives, and make Christ's sufferings and death at Calvary to provide us these blessings all in vain. The crucifixion the Christian is called upon to experience is not that of physical sickness, pain, and poverty, but the crucifixion of self. One may give up all his possessions and still not lose his affection for these things. In giving up the self-life one loses his affection for material things as ends in themselves, and as a result God can, with confidence, bless him abundantly just as He has promised in Philippians 4:19, where the Apostle Paul declares that "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Note carefully that God promises here to bless us richly by Christ Jesus which clearly means that all our needs (temporal as well as spiritual) were provided for in Christ's atonement, for all that we receive from God comes to us only as a result of Christ's work at Calvary (cf. 2 Cor. 1:20). Likewise, to contend that God sometimes uses sickness to make the believer more spiritual, or allows us to suffer occasionally in order to draw some lost or backslidden member of our family to Him, is in effect saying that we must add our suffering to that of Christ at Calvary. But the Scriptures plainly declare that "Surely he (Christ) has carried away our diseases, and borne our pains and with His stripes we are healed" (Isa. 53:4-5 Matt 8:17) Moreover, God draws your unsaved and backslidden loved ones to Him by the sufferings of Christ, not yours! Jesus' words in John 12:32-33 forever settle this fact: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me". This he said, signifying what death he should die." Only the Christian that refuses to accept sickness and poverty, knowing that they come from the hand of Satan (Jn. 10:10, Acts 10:38), and who walks in total faith in God in these matters, can fulfill God's perfect will in his life. Otherwise, he will find that he spends a good part of his time disabled with sickness and unable to serve the Lord as he should. Furthermore, much time is wasted in concern for supplying his temporal needs, instead of seeking first the Kingdom of God and allowing Him to provide these things as He promises in His Word (Matt. 6:19-34; Phil. 4:19). Thus, he must waste a good deal of his prayer time, which could be utilized for others, praying for, and concerned with, himself, instead of the work of the Kingdom. Very obviously "self" is not crucified when one spends so much time ministering to itself. It is only by walking in total faith, appropriating God's provisions which He has promised, do we have the health, strength, time, and provisions to fulfill His will in our lives. Are you concerned with fulfilling God's will in your life? God's will can be accomplished in the life of the Christian onIy to the extent he is willing to trust Him. Did you know that God has pledged Himself to direct each step of your life? The condition, however, is faith - total trust in God in all things without reservation. The promise is found in Proverbs 3:5-8: Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. There are three conditions of faith in this promise which the Christian must meet if he expects such divine direction of his life: (1) total trust in the Lord ("Trust in the Lord with all thine heart"); (2) lack of trust in oneself ("and lean not unto thine own understanding"); and (3) a constant confession of these two facts ("in all thy ways acknowledge him"). (1) Total trust in the Lord. Many Christians today reveal their great lack of faith in that they have no real confidence in God to keep the promises He has made them. This is reflected in their unwillingness to ask in faith what He has provided for them and promised to them; or when they do ask Him to fulfill a promise to meet some need, they condition their prayers by saying, "Grant this request Lord if it be Your will." Prayer conditioned with "if" for something God has promised is not a prayer of faith, and is one's confession that he is not sure God will be faithful and fulfill what He has promised to do. It is a terrifying thought to most Christians to suggest that God expects them to trust Him alone for their health, healing, finances, employment, protection, and so on. As a result they carefully arrange their lives so that they will never have to suffer the embarrassment of having to depend solely on Him in case of accident, sickness, financial distress, or some other emergency. Unlike the saints of old, who had only God to rely on for their provision, deliverance, and protection, the pampered saints of our generation have surrounded themselves with many fleshly substitutes for faith, while the financial institutions, together with the medical and accident insurance companies, are growing rich as a result of their doubt, fear, and unbelief. The life of faith means simply to "trust in the Lord with all your heart." Faith knows nothing of alternatives, substitutes, helps, or exceptions. Total trust in the Lord is to confess with the Psalmist: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust" (Ps. 91:2.). Total trust in the Lord is based upon the confidence that God is faithful to do all He has pledged Himself to do; thus, the Scriptures encourage us to "hold fast to the confession of our faith without doubting; for he is faithful that promised" (Heb. 10:23). The lack of true faith among professing believers today stems largely from the fact that people have been taught so many wrong ideas about the Biblical promises concerning such things as divine healing, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, the presence and activity of demons, provision for our temporal needs, the miraculous and supernatural. So many half-truths have been taught about God's promises that Christians today do not know what to believe. The trouble with a half-truth is that people usually believe the wrong half. I have found in my ministry of teaching what faith is that before I can get Christians to the place that they can once more begin to appropriate the promises of God and start living on the level of their inheritance, I must first of all get them to see that there are certain things concerning the Christian faith which are just not debatable, and that the Word of God is clear on these things. Moreover, when human opinion contradicts the plain teaching of the Word, then we must flatly reject man's interpretation of God's promises and take a stand with the Word. His promises are generally clear enough and need no special interpretation or explanation, which often robs them of their validity and effectiveness for this day. When we are promised that "the prayer of faith shall heal the sick,” and that "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory," that "there shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling," that "if any two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven," that "what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them," and that God "forgives all your iniquities; (and) heals all your diseases," then the Word is clear enough and needs no interpretation, but is simply to be acted upon in faith. There are literally thousands of such promises in the Scriptures which may be appropriated by faith. We find that Christians today, who are willing to lay aside men's opinion concerning God's Word and trust in the Lord with all their hearts, discover that Jesus is indeed the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), and that God will not fail to fulfill any promise which He has made (Num.23:19) (2) Lack of trust in oneself. The second condition to meet, if we are to expect divine direction for our lives, is stated thus: "lean not upon your own understanding." How many times have you prayed for guidance concerning God's will in some matter about which there was no specific revelation of His will in the Scriptures, but already had your mind made up as to what you desired to do and how you wanted God to answer your prayer? Do you at times, as you pray, wish to reserve the right to refuse the path God shows you in the event the cost seems too great, or in case His will is not in line with what you really wanted to do? In such instances are you not actually saying that you believe your wisdom and understanding concerning your need is greater than God's and is not such prayer in reality little more than an attempt to obtain God's approval on the course of action you have already decided to take? Again, we often see the substitution of human understanding for faith in God when a specific promise in His Word has been asked for, such as a promise of healing, provision of some special need, or the salvation or deliverance of a loved one. When the Christian is required to suffer a trial in connection with obtaining the answer, or when the circumstances seem to get worse for a time, then we find that many times he will begin to rely on his own wisdom in an attempt to "help" God provide the answer or solve the problem. So many are willing to trust God only up to a certain point, but then begin to panic if the symptoms become worse, or when the money they prayed for has not arrived by the deadline, or if the alcoholic husband or backslidden daughter they had prayed to the Lord for seems to be getting more hopeless daily. It is then that they will often seek to force open some door before it is God's time, or seek to change the adverse circumstance in some way. Leaning on one's own understanding results from a lack of trust in God, and invariably hinders Him in answering the prayer, often making it impossible for Him to help such individuals. We cannot expect divine direction of our lives unless we are willing to humble ourselves and admit that our fallible wisdom and intellect are incapable of solving the complexities of life or in fulfilling God's perfect will in our lives. (3) Constant Confession. The third condition for receiving divine direction for our lives is stated as follows: "In all your ways acknowledge him." This is the constantly saying that we are not leaning unto our own understanding, but are trusting the Lord in every detail of our lives. To acknowledge Himin all our ways means that we will speak God's blessing, protection, and guidance at all times, and not boast, as so many do, of our own achievements, nor say of how "fortunate" we were in receiving the unexpected raise in salary, or how "lucky" we were when no one was injured in the recent accident. Acknowledging God in all our ways is in reality a statement of faith in Him. If we genuinely believe that He is directing our every step, it will be reflected in our daily conversation. Sadly, Satan has somehow brought about the sad situation where we find that very often Christians seem to be acknowledging the enemy in all their ways, instead of the Lord. If you do not believe this, then just listen to the conversation and talking of the average Christian day to day. In reply to the simple, friendly greeting, "How are you today?" you may be surprised how often Christians immediately begin to confess that Satan has the victory over them. We hear such replies as, "Oh, I'm not feeling too well today," or "I believe I am trying to take the flu. "When asked to help in some aspect of the Lord's work, not infrequently Christians will decline, saying, "I would be afraid to attempt that," or "Perhaps you should ask someone else, as I am sure I would fail." Another laments, "If the cost of living keeps going up, I just don't know what I'm going to do. I suppose my wife will just have to go to work to help make ends meet." "I committed the problem in my marriage to the Lord several months ago," one discouraged wife tells another, "but the situation shows no marked improvement, and I must say that I am just about ready to give the whole thing up." Edited. Shared. To be Continued. ❤️ God willing, more will be posted soon. All glory to Jesus alone.

THE CALVARY MINISTRY - ONLINE THE CROSS OF CALVARY 🙏🏼 TUESDAY 21ST JULY, 2026 📜```TEXT: ISAIAH 53:3-7```📜 🔑📖```KEY VERSE:``` "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" (ISAIAH 53:5). Seven hundred years before Jesus was born, Isaiah saw Calvary. He saw a Man despised and rejected, a Man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Yet this Man was not suffering for His own sin — He was suffering for ours. Every wound had a name. Every bruise had a purpose. The Cross was not an accident; it was substitution. He was wounded in our place. Three truths from His wounds: One, His wounds forgive our transgressions. “He was wounded for our transgressions.” Transgressions — our willful rebellion. The spear, the nails, the thorns — they pierced Him because we transgressed. Two, His bruises break our iniquities. “He was bruised for our iniquities.” Iniquities — our twisted, bent nature. He was crushed under the weight of it, so we could be made straight. Three, His stripes purchase our peace and healing. “The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” The punishment that brought us peace — peace with God, peace in conscience — fell on Him. And healing flows still — for body, soul, and spirit. Do you carry today the guilt of transgression, the weight of iniquity, the unrest of a troubled heart? Look to Calvary. The prophet said it 700 years early so you would believe it today: He was wounded for you. He was bruised for you. His wounds are your healing. Come to the Cross and be whole. Prayer Man of Sorrows, thank You for being wounded for my transgressions and bruised for my iniquities. Thank You for taking my chastisement so I could have Your peace. Today I receive Your forgiveness, Your cleansing, and Your healing. Let the wounds You bore speak over my guilt, my sickness, and my sorrow, in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. May the Lord reveal His wounds to you today. May His forgiveness cover your past, His peace guard your heart, and may His stripes bring healing to every wounded part of your life, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. 🙏🏼

I Can't Feel God The greatest (and most honest) saints have always confessed that they had to walk through many valleys with no sense of God’s presence. Sometimes they nearly went deaf from the heavenly silence. Often, they stumbled helplessly in what felt like total darkness. C.S. Lewis wrote that during one of the most painful times of his life, he cried out to God and got “a door slammed in my face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.” Have you ever felt that way? Just because you feel that God is absent doesn’t mean He actually is. Just because you can’t track His footprints doesn’t mean He’s not walking beside you. If you’re a believer, that feeling of being alone is always an illusion. Yes, always. Here’s how I know. At the cross, Jesus experienced the horror of rejection by His heavenly Father. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried (Matthew 27:46). It wasn’t the pain of the nails that hurt Him most; it was the utter aloneness, the true abandonment. And He did it so that you and I would never have to experience it. The essence of the cross was substitution. Jesus faced our aloneness—the utter abandonment we had brought upon ourselves through sin—so that we would never have to. The Father turned His face away from His Son so that He would never have to turn His face away from us. So when we feel abandoned, that’s all it is—a feeling. A lying, deceptive feeling. It has to be. Jesus faced the full measure of our aloneness in our place and put it away forever. By His death, He reconciled us to God, so that we can know He will never leave us or forsake us. In some strange way we can never hope to comprehend, He was abandoned . . . for us. What do we do, then, when we feel alone? Simply: walk by faith, not by sight. You must re-believe the gospel, that God has removed the full extent of the curse—all that could ever separate you from Him—and has given you Christ’s complete righteousness in its place. You must re-believe that in His finished work you couldn’t be closer to Him than you are right now, regardless of how you feel. And you must re-claim the promises of God, most of which are made to us for times in which God appears distant. The gospel declares to us that God has made Himself close to us in Christ, holding us even tighter than a mother holds a newborn child (Isaiah 49:15). When our feelings tell us that is not true, we must defy those feelings with faith in God’s promise. So when you can’t “feel” God, be assured, He’s there. The cross assures you that He is. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Nothing can ever separate you from His love. He has united Himself, through His Spirit, inextricably to you. And just as He has done in the great saints of old, the Spirit is likely doing His best work in you in those dark times. ✍🏻 Pastor J.D. Greear, Tabletalk Magazine, Ligonier Ministries

THE CALVARY MINISTRY - ONLINE THE CROSS OF CALVARY 🙏🏼 SATURDAY 18TH JULY, 2026 📜 🔑📖 KEY VERSE:``` "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 CORINTHIANS 5:21). This is the great exchange of Calvary. Paul calls it reconciliation. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. How? By doing the unthinkable. He took the sinless Son and made Him to be sin for us. Not a sinner, but sin itself. All our guilt, all our filth, all our condemnation was laid on Jesus. Why? So that we, the unrighteous, could be made the righteousness of God in Him. At the Cross, He wore our sin. Now we wear His righteousness. Three truths from this exchange: One, the Innocent became guilty for us. “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” Jesus knew no sin — not in thought, word, or deed. Yet God laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Calvary is substitution. He stood in our place. Two, we become righteous in Him. “That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” We don’t just receive forgiveness; we receive His standing. God sees us not as pardoned criminals, but as beloved sons clothed in Christ’s perfection. Three, this compels a new life. “The love of Christ constraineth us… that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them” (verses 14-15). You were bought. You no longer live for you. You live for the One who died and rose. Are you still living under condemnation today? Still trying to earn a righteousness you already have? Still living for yourself after Calvary bought you? Look to the Cross again. See your sin on Him. See His righteousness on you. Let His love constrain you, compel you, and carry you this weekend. Prayer Father of reconciliation, thank You for the great exchange of Calvary. Thank You that Jesus who knew no sin was made sin for me. Today I receive by faith Your righteousness in Him. I lay down my guilt and my self-righteousness. Let the love of Christ constrain my heart and let my life be lived for Him who died for me, in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. May the Lord reveal the wonder of this exchange to you today. May you see your sin gone, His righteousness yours, and may the love of Calvary compel you to live wholly for Him, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. 🙏🏼

Need to know. WHEN WORSHIP OFFENDS GOD. The scariest worship is not the worship of atheists— but the worship God Himself calls VAIN. Jesus said: “In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” — Matthew 15:9 They prayed. They preached. They gathered. They looked religious. But Heaven rejected it. Why? Because they honored God with their lips— while replacing His Word with human tradition. “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?”— Matthew 15:3 RELIGION BECOMES DANGEROUS WHEN IT USES GOD’S NAME BUT DISOBEYS GOD’S WORD. A tradition may be ancient. A church may be crowded. A preacher may be famous. A doctrine may be loved by millions. But if it contradicts Scripture, it is not truth— it is deception wearing religious clothes. “To the law and to the testimony…” — Isaiah 8:20 True worship does not ask: “What is popular?” It asks: “What is written?” It does not ask: “What did men teach me?” It asks: “What did God command?” “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”— John 4:24 Not spirit without truth. Not emotion without obedience. Not tradition above the Bible. Cain worshiped—but was rejected. Saul worshiped—but was rebuked. The Pharisees worshiped—but Jesus called it vain. The final world will worship—but Revelation warns against false worship. THE FINAL ISSUE IS NOT WHETHER PEOPLE WORSHIP—BUT WHOSE AUTHORITY THEY OBEY. God’s commandments, that says to keep the Seventh Day (The Sabbath/ Saturday) Holy ( Exodus 20: 11) —or man’s commandments? (the first day of the week / Sunday). Bible truth—or religious tradition? Christ’s authority—or human systems? “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” — John 14:15 “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” @— Revelation 14:12 “The substitution of the laws of men for the law of God… is the last act in the drama.” — Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 7, p. 141 WAKE-UP LESSONS 1. Sincerity cannot save false worship. A wrong road does not become right because many walk on it. 2. Tradition must bow to Scripture. Anything that cancels God’s commandment is not light—it is darkness. 3. Love for Jesus is proven by obedience. Grace does not free us to ignore God’s law; grace brings us back to loving surrender. 4. The last conflict is over worship. Revelation’s final people are not marked by popularity, but by loyalty to God. FINAL APPEAL Beloved, do not only ask, “Do I worship?” Ask: Does God accept my worship? Is my faith built on the Bible, God's Holy Word, or mans inherited tradition? Am I following Christ—or just following the crowd? Because the worship God accepts is not the loudest, oldest, richest, or most popular. IT IS WORSHIP BUILT ON TRUTH, OBEDIENCE, AND THE FAITH OF JESUS. “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”— Revelation 14:12

SHOULD NEW TESTAMENT BELIEVERS PAY TITHE? There are 10, 10 percents in your earning. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. It is not every 10 percent that is your tithe. It is the first 10 percent that is your tithe. There's a movement that has begun to recover Christianity from chalice. Hello, welcome. How are you doing today? I'm Alathia, your host. Here we tackle some of the Church's most controversial topics with honesty, clarity, and compassion. My goal is to offer clear guidance and meaningful insight for believers seeking understanding, thoughtful perspectives for critics, and a welcoming space for those curious about faith. Let's seek truth, deepen our faith, and explore these questions together. The fundamentals of the Christian faith is subtly being eroded by diverging doctrine from what the first generation of believers once held dear. Join Apostle Arame Osayi as he brings clarity and meaning to the doctrine of tithe and consecration. There are some things that are due God. First thing that is due God is your tithe. It is needful for me to say at this point that even though your tithe is 10 percent, there are 10, 10 percent in your earning. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. It is not every 10 percent that is your tithe. It is the first 10 percent that is your tithe. So if you're earning $100, your tithe is what? $10. How many $10 are there in $100? There are 10, $10. I'm saying that your tithe is the first $10. That means if you spend money out of that arrangement, maybe you spend the first $10 at Walmart, and then you now came to church and gave the second $10. That's not tithe. That's not tithe. You have violated the principle of that which is due to God. There is no way you can stay in America, and you have a job, and you are not paying taxes. IRS will come to your house in the night. You have obligations to the territory. It is only in church that the average believer believes, thinks he doesn't have any obligation. And indeed, the pastor will not chase you to your house for you to fulfill your obligation, because your obligation is to God, so he will not chase you. But by refusing to give God his due, I will show you the consequence. The second 10 percent is not tithe. It doesn't have that hallowed place, that sacred place. It doesn't have it. It means that there's something in your life that is of more value than God. So you don't know what it means to worship God with your finances, because God doesn't have the place of preeminence in that arrangement that you have. You know my duty is to tell you the truth. You may not like it, but at least I have fulfilled my part of the bargain. I don't need to take you to the book of Malachi to show you God's complaint. No need to go there. And to show you how God felt dishonored. The reason why he felt dishonored was because of the way tithes and offerings were handled. So when we come to the issue of the things that are due God, we are touching on the principle of honor. And God insists that he be honored. So you cannot dishonor God and expect that God will facilitate your enlargement. What is the spiritual significance of tithing? One, tithing is a proof, it's an act of faith, which reveals the fact that God is my source. A lot of people in this congregation tonight believe that their job is their source. And so when someone, maybe someone that is in a position to determine whether you keep your job or not, now comes into your space demanding you to do something that is contrary to your conviction, the way we'll know if your job doubles as your source is whether your conviction will triumph in that circumstance or not. And it happens to be that in most cases, the believers seem not to have the capacity, the ability to stand their ground, even if it will translate to disfavor. God is my source. That's the first meaning of tithing. When you pay your tithe, you are demonstrating it, that God is your source. Then number two, you're also demonstrating that God has first place in your finances. Has first place in your finances. And the reason for which we need to give God first place in our finances is because there are two things according to the Bible that have the capacity of commanding human worship. One is God, and the second one is mammon. Mammon is a good fighter. Mammon wants to be enthroned in your life. And mammon will fight to secure that position in the life of every human being upon the face of the earth. Your tithing is a statement that mammon has not yet been able to succeed with your soul, because you have given God first place. Number three, your tithing is a demonstration of the fact that you have been delivered from greed, which is one of the very strong symptoms of the manifestation of the fall of man. Number four, your tithing is a demonstration that you seek to be in alignment with God, because you have given him his due. So the first thing that is due God is tithe. Don't expect to break spiritual principles and prosper. Prosperity is a sign of alignment. It's a sign of alignment. It's a sign of alignment. According to the principle of tithing, we all owe God a minimum of 2 hours 40 minutes every day of devotion, where the subject of those 2 hours 40 minutes is God, not your husband, not what is in the kitchen, not the yogurt, not the children. For 2 hours 40 minutes every day is God. It is easy for you to limit tithe to your earnings and not understand that even your time is a resource in your hands. You start becoming serious with God when you can spare 2 hours 40 minutes every day for a devotion in his presence. I'm not talking about a congregational effort. I'm talking about a personal effort. Oh, I want to show you how the covenant of God works for people. You think you run around every day, you are on the streets, you are on everywhere, the freeway for 24 hours. And then you come on Sunday morning panting and you pay tithe and you think you are okay. No. What we are doing is not tax collection. God will accept your person, accept your heart before he accepts something from your hand. And that's why there were efforts those days, people that had issues with other people wanting to bring offerings to God, he said, no, you go, hold on, put the offering by the altar, then go and reconcile because your heart is displaced. This offering will not be accepted. Number 2 thing that is due God. You will notice that in the land of Egypt, God killed the firstborn of Egypt, of man and beast. Are you there? The angel of death came to survey the land, Moses by the instrumentality of the gift of the word of wisdom, knew that if he puts blood on the lintels and the doorposts of the house, when the angel of death comes into Egypt and sees that blood, the angel of death will conclude that the firstborn of Israel has already been killed. And that's the reason why he will go over Israel and go and implement that judgment all over Egypt. That means that substitution took place. The animal that died was a substitute for the firstborn that was supposed to die. Are you there? Now, when the man left Egypt and came into the wilderness, God now demanded the firstborn that enjoyed that wisdom, that all of them need to be dedicated to him. They don't have a life of their own anymore. They must be dedicated to him, to serve his will, to serve his purpose. Are you there? Unfortunately for all of us, according to the economy of God, we are all firstborn. Because the Bible calls us the church of the firstborn. So we all have firstborn status in the eyes of God. And the implication of that is that the only reasonable thing that we can do under such circumstances is to be consecrated to serve the will of God. The next thing that is due God is your consecration. One of the laws of the spirit says that to whom you yield yourself as a servant to obey, the servant of him you shall become. So if I decide to yield myself as a servant of the Holy Ghost, I will eventually become a servant of the Holy Ghost. And even though you now market sin around me, it will become unnatural for me to respond to sin because I am a servant of the Holy Ghost. The more I serve the Holy Spirit, the more anything outside of the Holy Spirit becomes more foreign to my ecosystem. It will be unnatural for me to respond to that thing because it's not where I live. Do you understand what I'm talking about? So it happens to be that Adam received a suggestion that came from the devil, and he obeyed that suggestion. The implication now became that Adam became a servant of Satan. The authority of Adam now passed on to Satan. Satan became the one that began to wield Adamic power. Like I said in the book of Malachi chapter 1, chapter 2, one principle is being explained is the principle of honor. So God now reveals to us in Scripture how we can honor Him. In honoring God, we must give God that which is due His name. Are you still with me? One of the things that is due to God is tithe. Many might argue that the tithe is no longer applicable to the New Testament believer. That is because of lack of knowledge. We have two priesthoods in the Bible. One is the Levitical priesthood, and the other is the Melchizedek priesthood. In the days of Abraham, Abraham paid tithe. You know, he paid tithe, and he paid it to Melchizedek. That was the first priesthood that actually manifested. So Melchizedek accepts tithe. Do you still remember that Jacob made a promise to God that if God should support him, protect him, and bring him back again, he would give God a tenth of all he has. And Jacob and Abraham existed before the law came into existence. It was the Melchizedek priesthood that they operated, and they gave tithe. In the Levitical priesthood, the system through which tithe can be received is established in that priesthood. But the concept of tithing existed way before that priesthood was established. And by the time you go to the book of Hebrews, you will see that we are operating under the auspices of the Melchizedek priesthood. And the Melchizedek priesthood took tithe in the days of Abraham. He would take tithe now, and he would still take tithe in the world that is to come because that's the shape and the nature of his priesthood. So one of the things that we do in honor to honor God is to give him his due. I did a teaching on this, and I mentioned all the dues of God. Just like you pay Nepal bill, you pay tax, that's your due as a Nigerian. So in the kingdom of God, there are also things that are due God that will come from your life. The least among them is your tithe. And by the time you come into the New Testament, you give God more than tithe. The Old Testament, the requirements was tithing. The New Testament, the requirement is consecration. So what you have and what you are is his. But you see, God will not take what is his. And the way for you to practice consecration is to begin from tithing first. And after tithing, you will now have a sense of responsibility that there are actually things that belong to God. Then God can now come and say, resign. I want to use you as a minister behind the pulpit. Stop the work you are doing. You cannot obey that voice if you have not been obeying in tithing. Tithing is like the ordinary level requirement. So the Bible says in Malachi chapter 3 verse 10, it says, Bring ye all the tithes. And you know, I said it's the principle of honor that is revealed here. Into my storehouse that there might be meat in my house. And put me now herewith, saith the Lord, if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sins. I will rebuke the devourer for your sins. There are some deals that God will ask you. Give me this. One of the things you will enjoy by complying is that God now takes the responsibility to rebuke the devourer. Thank you for watching. If today's discussion stirred questions, take a moment to reflect on your own beliefs and study the scriptures that address tithe and consecration. Meditate on what the Bible says about giving and stewardship and journal any insights or questions you'd like to explore further. https://youtu.be/FC2iAMtBz1w?si=cNb4-dCroevFA1v7 By: Apostle Arome Osayi

*RHAPSODY OF REALITIES DAILY DEVOTIONAL* Monday, June 15th, 2026 Pastor Chris Oyakhilome DSc DSc DD *THE FLESH HAS BEEN CRUCIFIED* 📖 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Galatians 5:24) There exists a common misconception among many that the flesh must continually be "crushed" or subdued through repeated struggle and effort. But the Scripture presents a different reality: the Christian has already crucified the flesh. The Complete Jewish Bible renders our opening scripture beautifully; it says, Moreover, those who belong to the Messiah Yeshua have put their old nature to death on the stake, along with its passions and desires." This is not a process but an accomplished reality: your old nature is dead: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The reason many still struggle with the flesh is simple: they attempt to achieve what has already been accomplished, applying effort where understanding is required. The more they strive, the more they become subject to the very thing they're trying to overcome. That's not how it works. Live in the Word. Accept what the Word says about you. Even the works of the flesh listed in Galatians 5:19-21 are not attributed to demons but to the flesh itself, indicating that the issue is not external but internal. Understand that this doesn't place the Christian in a position of disadvantage, because the solution is not found in suppression but in substitution: "...walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). The emphasis is not on eliminating the works of the flesh but on living in the Spirit and by the Spirit, walking in the light and reality of God's Word. As you walk in the Spirit, the life of the Spirit is manifested in you and through you, and the influence of the flesh is displaced. It helps to understand why the Bible says "...Sin shall not have dominion over you..." (Romans 6:14). *PRAYER* Dear Father, thank you for the substitutionary work of Christ that has translated me from death to life, sin to righteousness, and from darkness to light. I walk in the Spirit and live in the reality of my new nature, manifesting the life of righteousness and dominion, today and always, in Jesus' Name. Amen. *FURTHER STUDY:* Galatians 5:16, 24 NIV "[16] So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. [24] Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."_ Romans 8:12-13 _"[12] Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. [13] For if you live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." *DAILY SCRIPTURE READING:* *1-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN:* Acts 5:12-42 & 2 Chronicles 23-25 *2-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN:* 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 & Isaiah 1

The Sabbath Truth # 9 Sabbath History. Denominational Statements on the Sabbath. 1 CATHOLIC CHURCH 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, NJ ‘News’ on March 18, 1903. 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 observing Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the Church, the pope. —Our Sunday Visitor, February 5th, 1950. Of course these two old quotations are exactly correct. The Catholic Church designated Sunday as the day for corporate worship and gets full credit – or blame – for the change. —This Rock, The Magazine of Catholic Apologetics and Evangelization, p.8, June 1997 Q. Have you any other proofs that they(Protestants) are not guided by the Scripture? A. Yes; so many, that we cannot admit more than a mere specimen into this small work. They reject much that is clearly contained in Scripture, and profess more that is nowhere discoverable in that Divine Book. Q. Give some examples of both? A. They should, if the Scripture were their only rule, wash the feet of one another, according to the command of Christ, in the 13th chap. of St. John; —they should keep, not the Sunday, but the Saturday, according to the commandment, "Remember thou keep holy the SABBATH-day;" for this commandment has not, in Scripture, been changed or abrogated;... —Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 101 Imprimatuer Q. Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? A. 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. —Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 174 Q. In what manner can we show a Protestant, that he speaks unreasonably against fasts and abstinences? A. Ask him why he keeps Sunday, and not Saturday, as his day of rest, since he is unwilling either to fast or to abstain. If he reply, that the Scripture orders him to keep the Sunday, but says nothing as to fasting and abstinence, tell him the Scripture speaks of Saturday or the Sabbath, but gives no command anywhere regarding Sunday or the first day of the week. If, then he neglects Saturday as a day of rest and holiness, and substitutes Sunday in its place, and this merely because such was the usage of the ancient Church, should he not, if he wishes to act consistently, observe fasting and abstinence, because the ancient Church so ordained? —Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 181 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. —Rev. Peter Geiermann C.SS.R., The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50 Q. Must not a sensible Protestant doubt seriously, when he finds that even the Bible is not followed as a rule by his co-religionists? A. Surely, when he sees them baptize infants, abrogate the Jewish Sabbath, and observe Sunday for which [pg. 7] there is no Scriptural authority; when he finds them neglect to wash one another's feet, which is expressly commanded, and eat blood and things strangled, which are expressly prohibited in Scripture. He must doubt, if he think at all. ... Q. Should not the Protestant doubt when he finds that he himself holds tradition as a guide? A. Yes, if he would but reflect that he has nothing but Catholic Tradition for keeping the Sunday holy; ... —Controversial Catechism by Stephen Keenan, New Edition, revised by Rev. George Cormack, published in London by Burns & Oates, Limited - New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benzinger Brothers, 1896, pages 6, 7. The Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's Day. The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, can. xix) condemns those who deny that the Ten Commandments are binding on Christians. —The Catholic Encyclopedia, Commandments of God, Volume IV, © 1908 by Robert Appleton Company, Online Edition © 1999 by Kevin Knight, Nihil Obstat - Remy Lafort, Censor Imprimatur - +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York, page 153. The [Roman Catholic] 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 of us believe many things in regard to religion that we do not find in the Bible. 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 Church outside the Bible. —The Catholic Virginian, To Tell You The Truth,” Vol. 22, No. 49 (Oct. 3, 1947). ... 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. —The Faith of Our Fathers, by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 88th edition, page 89. Originally published in 1876, republished and Copyright 1980 by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., pages 72-73. Deny the authority of the Church and you have no adequate or reasonable explanation or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third - Protestant Fourth - Commandment of God... The Church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.' —Catholic Record, September 1, 1923. But since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn't it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible and not the Church, observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Yes, of course, it is inconsistent; but this change was made about fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born, and by that time the custom was universally observed. They have continued the custom, even though it rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon an explicit text in the Bible. That observance remains as a reminder of the Mother Church from which the non-Catholic sects broke away - like a boy running away from home but still carrying in his pocket a picture of his mother or a lock of her hair. —The Faith of Millions Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. "The Day of the Lord" (dies Dominica) was chosen, not from any directions noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church's sense of its own power. The day of resurrection, the day of Pentecost, fifty days later, came on the first day of the week. So this would be the new Sabbath. People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy. —Sentinel, Pastor's page, Saint Catherine Catholic Church, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995 If Protestants would follow the Bible, they would 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. The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is 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. What Important Question Does the Papacy Ask Protestants? Protestants have repeatedly asked the papacy, "How could you dare to change God's law?" But the question posed to Protestants by the Catholic church is even more penetrating. Here it is officially: You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! but by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day, who shall dare to say, Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead? This is a most important question, which I know not how you can answer. You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which the Bible has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments; you believe that the other nine are still binding; who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered. —Library of Christian Doctrine: Why Don't You Keep Holy the Sabbath-Day? (London: Burns and Oates, Ltd.), pp. 3, 4. There is but one church on the face of the earth which has the power, or claims power, to make laws binding on the conscience, binding before God, binding under penalty of hell-fire. For instance, the institution of Sunday. What right has any other church to keep this day? You answer by virtue of the third commandment (the papacy did away with the 2nd regarding the worship of graven images, and called the 4th the 3rd), which says 'Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.' But Sunday is not the Sabbath. Any schoolboy knows that Sunday is the first day of the week. I have repeatedly offered one thousand dollars to anyone who will prove by the Bible alone that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep, and no one has called for the money. It was the holy Catholic Church that changed the day of rest from Saturday, the seventh day, to Sunday, the first day of the week. —T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture delivered in 1893. Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters. —C. F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons, in answer to a letter regarding the change of the Sabbath, November 11, 1895. Tradition, not Scripture, is the rock on which the church of Jesus Christ is built. —Adrien Nampon, Catholic Doctrine as Defined by the Council of Trent, p. 157 The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even divine law". The pope can modify divine law, since his power is not of man, but of God, and he acts a vicegerent of God upon earth —Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, art. Papa, II, Vol. VI, p. 29. The leader of the Catholic church is defined by the faith as the Vicar of Jesus Christ (and is accepted as such by believers). The Pope is considered the man on earth who "takes the place" of the Second Person of the omnipotent God of the Trinity. —John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p. 3, 1994 ...pastoral intuition suggested to the Church the christianization of the notion of Sunday as "the day of the sun", which was the Roman name for the day and which is retained in some modern languages.(29) This was in order to draw the faithful away from the seduction of cults which worshipped the sun, and to direct the celebration of the day to Christ, humanity's true 'sun'. —John Paul II, Dies Domini, 27. The day of Christ-Light, 1998 (Prominent protestant leaders agree with this statement - See here for a statement by Dr. E. T. Hiscox, author of the ‘Baptist Manual’) The Sun was a foremost god with heathen-dom…The sun has worshippers at this hour in Persia and other lands…. There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of Justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said, to 'Keep that old pagan name [Sunday]. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified.' And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus. —William Gildea, Doctor of Divinity, The Catholic World, March, 1894, p. 809 The retention of the old pagan name of Dies Solis, for Sunday is, in a great measure, owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects - pagan and Christian alike - as the 'venerable' day of the sun. —Arthur P. Stanley, History of the Eastern Church, p. 184 When St. Paul repudiated the works of the law, he was not thinking of the Ten Commandments, which are as unchangeable as God Himself is, which God could not change and still remain the infinitely holy God. —Our Sunday Visitor, Oct. 7, I951. Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holydays? 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. —Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine (1833 approbation), p.58 (Same statement in Manual of Christian Doctrine, ed. by Daniel Ferris [1916 ed.], p.67) 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 Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is 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. —Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press, Studies in Sacred Theology, No. 70.,1943, p. 2. If we consulted the Bible only, we should still have to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is, Saturday, with the Jews, instead of Sunday; ... —A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, by Rev. John Laux M.A., Benzinger Brothers, 1936 edition, Part 1. Sunday is a Catholic institution, and... 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, Aug. 25, 1900 The Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday. The Church altered the observance of the Sabbath to the observance of Sunday. Protestants must be rather puzzled by the keeping of Sunday when God distinctly said, 'Keep holy the Sabbath Day.' The word Sunday does not come anywhere in the Bible, so, without knowing it they are obeying the authority of the Catholic Church. —Canon Cafferata, The Catechism Explained, p. 89. Reason and 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. —John Cardinal Gibbons, The Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893. 2 ANGLICAN CHURCH "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." Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, pages 334, 336. 3 BAPTIST CHURCH “There was and is a command to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will however be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, where can the record of such a transaction be found: Not in the New Testament – absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the Seventh to the first day of the week.” Dr. E. T. Hiscox, author of the ‘Baptist Manual’. "To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' discussion with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question, discussing it in some of its various aspects, freeing it from its false [Jewish traditional] glosses, never alluded to any transference of the day; also, that during the forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated. Nor, so far as we know, did the Spirit, which was given to bring to their remembrance all things whatsoever that He had said unto them, deal with this question. Nor yet did the inspired apostles, in preaching the gospel, founding churches, counseling and instructing those founded, discuss or approach the subject. Of course I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of Paganism, and christened with the name of the sun-god, then adopted and sanctified by the Papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism." Dr. E. T. Hiscox, report of his sermon at the Baptist Minister's Convention, in 'New York Examiner,' November 16, 1893 (The leader / spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church agrees with this statement. See Below) "The Scriptures nowhere call the first day of the week the Sabbath. . .There is no Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of course, any Scriptural obligation." The Watchman. "We believe that the law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of His moral government."-" Baptist Church Manual," Art. 12. "There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance." -WILLIAM OWEN CARVER, " The Lord's Day in Our Day," page 49. "There is nothing in Scripture that requires us to keep Sunday rather than Saturday as a holy day." Harold Lindsell (editor), Christianity Today, Nov. 5, 1976 4 BRETHREN CHURCH "With the views of the law and the Sabbath we once held ... and which are still held by perhaps the great majority of the most earnest Christians, we confess that we could not answer Adventists. What is more, neither before or since have I heard or read what would conclusively answer an Adventist in his Scriptural contention that the Seventh day is the Sabbath (Ex. 20:10). It is not 'one day in seven' as some put it, but 'the seventh day according to the commandment.' " Words of Truth and Grace, p. 281. 5 CHRISTIAN CHURCH "I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles of heaven that the Sabbath is changed, or that the Lord’s Day came in the room of it." Alexander Campbell, in The Reporter, October 8, 1921 "It has reversed the fourth commandment by doing away with the Sabbath of God's Word, and instituting Sunday as a holiday." - Dr. N. Summerbell, History of the Christian Church, Third Edition, p. 415 "There is no direct scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day." - Dr. D. H. Lucas, Christian Oracle, Jan. 23, 1890. "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. There never was any change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change." First-Day Observance, pp. 17, 19. 6 DISCIPLES OF CHRIST CHURCH "There is no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day ‘the Lord’s Day.’" Dr D.H. Lucas, Christian Oracle, January, 1890 7 CHURCH OF CHRIST "But we do not find any direct command from God, or instruction from the risen Christ, or admonition from the early apostles, that the first day is to be substituted for the seventh day Sabbath." "Let us be clear on this point. Though to the Christian 'that day, the first day of the week' is the most memorable of all days ... there is no command or warrant in the New Testament for observing it as a holy day." "The Roman Church selected the first day of the week in honour of the resurrection of Christ. ..." Bible Standard, May, 1916, Auckland, New Zealand. "... If the fourth command is binding upon us Gentiles by all means keep it. But let those who demand a strict observance of the Sabbath remember that the seventh day is the ONLY sabbath day commanded, and God never repealed that command. If you would keep the Sabbath, keep it; but Sunday is not the Sabbath. The argument of the 'Seventh-day Adventists' is on one point unassailable. It is the Seventh day not the first day that the command refers to." G. Alridge, Editor, The Bible Standard, April, 1916. "There is no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day." -DR. D. H. LUCAS, Christian Oracle, Jan. 23, 1890. "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. There never was any change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change." -"First-Day Observance," pages 17, 19. "It has reversed the fourth commandment by doing away with the Sabbath of God's Word, and instituting Sunday as a holiday." DR. N. SUMMERBELL, "History of the Christian Church," Third Edition, page 4I5. "To command...men...to observe...the Lord's day...is contrary to the gospel." - "Memoirs of Alexander Campbell," Vol. 1, page 528. "It is clearly proved that the pastors of the churches have struck out one of God's ten words, which, not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation, are the most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality." -ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, "Debate With Purcell," page 214. "I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles of heaven that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room of it." -ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, Washington Reporter, Oct. 8, 1821. 8 CHURCH OF ENGLAND "Many people think that Sunday is the Sabbath. But neither in the New Testament nor in the early church is there anything to suggest that we have any right to transfer the observance of the seventh day of the week to the first. The Sabbath was and is Saturday and not Sunday, and if it were binding on us then we should observe it on that day, and on no other." Rev. Lionel Beere, All-Saints Church, Ponsonby, N.Z. in Church and People, Sept. 1, 1947. "Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. ...! That is Saturday." P. Carrington, Archbishop of Quebec, Oct. 27, 1949; cited in Prophetic Signs, p 12. "The observance of the first instead of the seventh day rests on the testimony of the church, and the church alone." Hobart Church News, July 2, 1894; cited in Prophetic Signs, p 14. "Where are we told in Scripture 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 holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many things, not because the Bible, but because the Church, has enjoined them." Rev. Isaac Williams, Ser. on Catechism, p. 334. "The seventh day, the commandment says, is the Sabbath of The Lord thy God. No kind of arithmetic, no kind of almanac, can make seven equal one, nor the seventh mean the first, nor Saturday mean Sunday. ... The fact is that we are all Sabbath breakers, every one of us." Rev. Geo. Hodges. "Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to His apostles." -SIR WILLIAM DOMVILLE, "Examination of the Six Texts," pages 6, 7. (Supplement). "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." -CANON EYTON, 'The Ten Commandments," pages 52, 63, 65. "Is there any command in the New Testament to change the day of weekly rest from Saturday to Sunday? None." -"Manual of Christian Doctrine," page 127. "The Lord's day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath....The Lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because for almost three hundred years together they kept that day which was in that commandment...The primitive Christians did all manner of works upon the Lord's day, even in times of persecution, when they are the strictest observers of all the divine commandments; but in this they knew there was none." -BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR, "Ductor Dubitantium," Part I, Book II, Chap. 2, Rule 6. Sec. 51, 59. "Sunday being the day on which the Gentiles solemnly adore that planet and called it Sunday, partly from its influence on that day especially, and partly in respect to its divine body (as they conceived it), the Christians thought fit to keep the same day and the same name of it, that they might not appear causelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the conversion of the Gentiles, and bring a greater prejudice than might be otherwise taken against the gospel." -T. M. MORER, "Dialogues on the Lord's Day," pages 22, 23. "The Puritan idea was historically unhappy. It made Sun­day into the Sabbath day. Even educated people call Sunday the Sabbath. Even clergymen do." "But, unless my reckoning is all wrong, the Sabbath day lasts twenty-four hours from six o'clock on Friday evening. It gives over, therefore, before we come to Sunday. If you suggest to a Sabbatarian that he ought to observe the Sabbath on the proper day, you arouse no enthusiasm. He at once replies that the day, not the principle, has been changed. But changed by whom? There is no injunction in the whole of the New Testament to Christians to change the Sabbath into Sunday.' - D. MORSE­BOYCOTT, Daily Herald, London, Feb. 26, 1931. "The Christian church made no formal, but a gradual and almost unconscious transference of the one day to the other." - F.W. FARRAR, D.D., "The Voice From Sinai," page 167. "Take which you will, either of the Fathers or the moderns, and we shall find no Lord's day instituted by any apostolical man­date; no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of the week." -PETER HEYLYN, "History of the Sabbath," page 410. "Merely to denounce the tendency to secularise Sunday is as futile as it is easy. What we want is to find some principle, to which as Christians we can appeal, and on which we can base both our conduct and our advice. We turn to the New Testament, and we look in vain for any authoritative rule. There is no recorded word of Christ, there is no word of any of the apostles, which tells how we should keep Sunday, or indeed that we should keep it at all. It is disappointing, for it would make our task much easier if we could point to a definite rule, which left us no option but simple obedience or disobedience. . . . There is no rule for Sunday observance, either in Scripture or history." -DR. STEPHEN, Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W., in an address reported in the Newcastle Morn­ing Herald, May 14, 1924. 9 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH "The Christian Sabbath' [Sunday] is not in the Scripture, and was not by the primitive [early Christian] church called the Sabbath." Timothy Dwight, Theology, sermon 107, 1818 ed., Vol. IV, p49 Note: Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) was president of Yale University from 1795-1817. "It is quite clear that, however rigidly or devoutly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath ... The 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." Dr. Dale, The Ten Commandments, pp. 106, 107. "It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day." Buck's Theological Dictionary page 403. "There is no command in the Bible requiring us to observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath." -ORIN FOWLER, A.M., "Mode and Subjects of Baptism." "The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament." -DR. LYMAN ABBOTT, Christian Union, Jan. 18, 1882. 10 AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALIST CHURCH "The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament." Dr. Layman Abbot, in the Christian Union, June 26, 1890. 11 EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH "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, Apostolic Church of Christ." Bishop Symour, Why We keep Sunday. "The Bible commandment says on the seventh-day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday." Phillip Carrington, quoted in Toronto Daily Star, Oct 26, 1949 [Carrington (1892-), Anglican archbishop of Quebec, spoke the above in a message on this subject delivered to a packed assembly of clergymen. It was widely reported at the time in the news media]. 12 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH "The day is now changed from the seventh to the first day ... but as we meet with no Scriptural direction for the change, we may conclude it was done by the authority of the church." ‘Explanation of Catechism’ 13 INFIDEL CHURCH "Probably very few Christians are aware of the fact that what they call the 'Christian Sabbath' (Sunday) is of pagan origin." "The first observance of Sunday- that history records is in the fourth century', when Constantine issued an edict (not requiring its religious observance, but simply abstinence from work) reading, 'let all the judges and people of the town rest and all the various trades be suspended on the venerable day of the sun.' At the time of the issue of this edict, Constantine was a sun-worshipper; therefore it could have had no relation whatever to Christianity." - ­HENRY M. TABER. "Faith or Fact" (preface by Robert G. Ingersoll), page 112. "I challenge any priest or minister of the Christian religion to show me the slightest authority for the religious observance of Sunday. And, if such cannot be shown by them, why is it that they are constantly preaching about Sunday as a holy day? ...The claim that Sunday takes the place of Saturday, and that because the Jews were supposed to be commanded to keep the seventh day of the week holy, therefore the first day of the week should be so kept by Christians, is so utterly absurd as to be hardly worth considering....That Paul habitually observed and preached on the seventh day of the week, is shown in Acts 18:4-'And be reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath' (Saturday)." -Id., pages ,114, 116. 14 LUTHERAN CHURCH "The observance of the Lord's Day (Sunday) is founded not on any command of God, but on the authority of the Church." Augsburg Confession of Faith. "They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it appears, neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, say they, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments." -Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 28, par. 9. "They [Roman Catholics] allege the change of the Sabbath into the Lord's day, as it seemeth, to the Decalogue [the ten commandments]; and they have no example more in their mouths than they change of the Sabbath. They will needs have the Church's power to be very great, because it hath dispensed with the precept of the Decalogue." The Augsburg Confession, 1530 A.D. (Lutheran), part 2, art 7, in Philip Schaff, the Creeds of Christiandom, 4th Edition, vol 3, p64 [this important statement was made by the Lutherans and written by Melanchthon, only thirteen years after Luther nailed his theses to the door and began the Reformation]. "For up to this day mankind has absolutely trifled with the original and most special revelation of the Holy God, the ten words written upon the tables of the Law from Sinai." -"Crown Theological Library," page I78. "The Christians in the ancient church very soon distinguished the first day of the week, Sunday; however, not as a Sabbath, but as an assembly day of the church, to study the Word of God together, and to celebrate the ordinances one with another: without a shadow of doubt, this took place as early as the first part of the second century." -Bishop GRIMELUND, "History of the Sabbath," page 60. "The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance."- AUGUSTUS NEANDER, "History of the Christian Religion and Church," Vol. 1, page 186. "I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments...Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity abrogate sin also." -MARTIN LUTHER, Spiritual Antichrist," pages 71, 72. "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 Christian of the first three centuries never confused one with the other, but for a time celebrated both." The Sunday Problem, a study book by the Lutheran Church (1923) p.36 "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." John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday, pp.15, 16 15 LUTHERAN FREE CHURCH "For when there could not be produced one solitary place in the Holy Scriptures which testified that either the Lord Himself or the apostles had ordered such a transfer of the Sabbath to Sunday, then it was not easy to answer the question: Who has transferred the Sabbath, and who has the right to do it?" George Sverdrup, ‘A New Day.’ 16 METHODIST CHURCH "This 'handwriting of ordinances' our Lord did blot out, take away, and nail to His cross. (Colossians 2: 14.) But the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away.... The moral law stands on an entirely different foundation from the ceremonial or ritual law. ...Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages." -JOHN WESLEY, "Sermons on Several Occasions," 2-Vol. Edition, Vol. I, pages 221, 222. "No Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral." -"Methodist Church Discipline," (I904), page 23. "The Sabbath was made for MAN; not for the Hebrews, but for all men." -E.O. HAVEN, "Pillars of Truth," page 88. "The reason we observe the first day instead of the seventh is based on no positive command. One will search the Scriptures in vain for authority for changing from the seventh day to the first. The early Christians began to worship on the first day of the week because Jesus rose from the dead on that day. By and by, this day of worship was made also a day of rest, a legal holiday. This took place in the year 321. "The reason we observe the first day instead of the seventh is based on no positive command. One will search the Scriptures in vain for authority for changing from the seventh day to the first... Our Christian Sabbath, therefore, is not a matter of positive command. It is a gift of the church... "-CLOVIS G. CHAPPELL, "Ten Rules for Living," page 61. "Sabbath in the Hebrew language signifies rest, and is the seventh day of the week... and it must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day." Charles Buck, A Theological Dictionary, "Sabbath" "In the days of very long ago the people of the world began to give names to everything, and they turned the sounds of the lips into words, so that the lips could speak a thought. In those days the people worshiped the sun because many words were made to tell of many thoughts about many things. The people became Christians and were ruled by an emperor whose name was Constantine. This emperor made Sunday the Christian Sabbath, because of the blessing of light and heat which came from the sun. So our Sunday is a sun-day, isn't it?" -Sunday School Advocate, Dec. 31, 1921. "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." -JOHN WESLEY, "Sermons on Several Occasions," Vol. I, Sermon XXV. "The Sabbath instituted in the beginning, and confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets, has never been abrogated. A part of the moral law, not a jot or a tittle of its sanctity has been taken away." New York Herald 1874, on the Methodist Episcopal Bishops Pastoral 1874 17 MISCELLANEOUS CHURCH "You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! But by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, 'Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day,' who shall dare to say, 'Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of business on the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead'? This is a most important question, which I know not how you can answer." "You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which the Bible has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the Ten Commandments; you believe that the other nine are still binding; who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered." -"The Library of Christian Doctrine," pages 3, 4. "The first precept in the Bible is that of sanctifying the seventh day: 'God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.' Genesis 2:3. This precept was confirmed by God in the Ten Commandments: 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep It holy. ...The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.' Exodus 20: 8, 10. On the other hand, Christ declares that He is not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. (Matthew 5: 17.) He Himself observed the Sabbath: 'And, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.' Luke 4: r6. His disciples likewise observed it after His death: 'They . . . rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.' Luke 23: 56. Yet with all this weight of Scripture authority for keeping the Sabbath or seventh day holy, Protestants of all denominations make this a profane day and transfer the obligation of it to the first day of the week, or the Sunday. Now what authority have they for doing this? None at all but the unwritten word, or tradition of the Catholic Church, which declares that the apostle made the change in honour of Christ's resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Ghost on that day of the week." -JOHN MILNER, "The End of Religious Controversy," page 71. "Sabbath means, of course, Saturday, the seventh day of the week, but the early Christians changed the observance to Sunday, to honour the day on which Christ arose from the dead." -FULTON OURSLER. Cosmopolitan, Sept. 1951, pages 34, 35. "I do not pretend to be even an amateur scholar of the Scriptures. I read the Decalogue merely as an average man searching for guidance, and in the immortal 'Ten Words' I find a blueprint for the good life." -Id., page 33. "Most certainly the Commandments are needed today, perhaps more than ever before. Their divine message confronts us with a profound moral challenge in an epidemic of evil; a unifying message acceptable alike to Jew, Moslem, and Christian. Who, reading the Ten in the light of history and of current events, can doubt their identity with the eternal law of nature?" -Id., page 124. "The Sabbath is commanded to be kept on the seventh day. It could not be kept on any other day. To observe the first day of the week or the fourth is not to observe the Sabbath. . . . It was the last day of the week, after six days of work, that was to be kept holy. The observance of no other day would fulfil the law." -H. J. FLOWERS, B.A., B.D., "The Permanent Value of the Ten Commandments," page 13. "The evaluation of Sunday, the traditionally accepted day of the resurrection of Christ, has varied greatly throughout the centuries of the Christian Era. From time to time it has been confused with the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath. English ­speaking peoples have been the most consistent in perpetuating the erroneous assumption that the obligation of the fourth commandment has passed over to Sunday. In popular speech, Sunday is frequently, but erroneously, spoken of as the Sabbath." -F. M. SETZLER, Head Curator, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institute, from a letter dated Sept. 1, 1949. "He that observes the Sabbath aright holds the history of that which it celebrates to be authentic, and therefore believes in the creation of the first man; in the creation of a fair abode for man in the space of six days; in the primeval and absolute creation of the heavens and the earth, and, as a necessary antecedent to all this, in the Creator, who at the close of His latest creative effort, rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath thus becomes a sign by which the believers in a historical revelation are distinguished from those who have allowed these great facts to fade from their remembrance.' - JAMES G. MURPHY, "Commentary on the Book of Exodus," comments on Exodus 20: 8-11. 18 MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE "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?" - D.L. MOODY, "Weighed and Wanting," page 47. "I honestly believe that this commandment [the fourth, or Sabbath 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.' It is just 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.' - Id., page 46. "This Fourth is not a commandment for one place, or one time, but for all places and times." D.L. Moody, at San Francisco, Jan. 1st, 1881. 19 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH "The Christian Sabbath (Sunday) is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive church called the Sabbath." Dwight's Theology, Vol. 14, p. 401. "A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matthew 24:20, Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day. But the final destruction of Jerusalem was after the Christian dispensation was fully set up (AD 70). Yet it is plainly implied in these words of the Lord that even then Christians were bound to strict observation of the Sabbath." Works of Jonathon Edwards, (Presby.) Vol. 4, p. 621. "We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law; for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must therefore be as unchangeable as the justice of God, which it embraced, is constant and uniform." JOHN CALVIN, "Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels," Vol. 1, page 277. "God instituted the Sabbath at the creation of man, setting apart the seventh day for the purpose, and imposed its observance as a universal and perpetual moral obligation upon the race." ­American Presbyterian Board of Publication, Tract No. 175. "The observance of the seventh-day Sabbath did not cease till it was abolished after the [Roman] empire became Christian," ­American Presbyterian Board of Publication, Tract No. 118. "The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard to the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the gospel in any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation." "Westminster Confession of Faith," Chap. 19, Art. 5. "The Sabbath is a part of the Decalogue-the Ten Commandments. This alone for ever 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." - T.C. BLAKE, D.D., "Theology Condensed," pages 474, 475. "Sunday being the first day of which the Gentiles solemnly adored that planet and called it Sunday, partly from its influence on that day especially, and partly in respect to its divine body (as they conceived it) the Christians thought fit to keep the same day and the same name of it, that they might not appear carelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the conversion of the Gentiles, and bring a greater prejudice that might be otherwise taken against the gospel" T.M. Morer, Dialogues on the Lord's Day "There is no word, no hint in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday. The observance of Ash Wednesday, or Lent, stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday. Into the rest of Sunday no Divine Law enters." Canon Eyton, in The Ten Commandments. "Some have tried to build the observance of Sunday upon Apostolic command, whereas the Apostles gave no command on the matter at all.... The truth is, so soon as we appeal to the litera scripta [literal writing] of the Bible, the Sabbatarians have the best of the argument." The Christian at Work, April 19, 1883, and Jan. 1884 20 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CHURCH "The sacred name of the Seventh day is Sabbath. This fact is too clear to require argument [Exodus 20:10 quoted]… on this point the plain teaching of the Word has been admitted in all ages… Not once did the disciples apply the Sabbath law to the first day of the week, -- that folly was left for a later age, nor did they pretend that the first day supplanted the seventh." Joseph Hudson Taylor, ‘The Sabbatic Question’, p. 14-17, 41. "The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God.... But when we keep the first four commandments, we are likely to keep the other six. . . . The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought.... The six days of labour and the rest on the Sabbath are to be maintained as a witness to God's toil and rest in the creation. . . . No one of the ten words is of merely racial significance.... The Sabbath was established originally (long before Moses) in no spec

Daily Bible Lesson. THE KING OF THE NORTH, VS. THE KING OF THE SOUTH. Daniel 11’s Final Clash Before Michael Stands Up Daniel 11 is not prophecy for curiosity. It is prophecy for preparation. It does not end with politics. It ends with earth’s final crisis, the close of probation, and the deliverance of God’s people. “At that time shall Michael stand up… and at that time thy people shall be delivered.” — Daniel 12:1 DANIEL 11 ENDS WITH EARTH’S FINAL CONFLICT. DANIEL 12 OPENS WITH HEAVEN’S FINAL INTERVENTION. --- THE KING OF THE SOUTH: OPEN GODLESSNESS Historically, the King of the South was Egypt. But in last-day prophetic meaning, Egypt represents open rebellion against God. Pharaoh said: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice?” — Exodus 5:2 That is the spirit of the South: No God over me. No divine law above me. No Creator to obey. No judgment to fear. No authority higher than man. Revelation also uses Egypt spiritually: “Spiritually… Sodom and Egypt.” — Revelation 11:8 THE KING OF THE SOUTH REPRESENTS GODLESS RESISTANCE— ATHEISM, SECULARISM, HUMAN PRIDE, MORAL REBELLION, AND OPEN REJECTION OF GOD’S AUTHORITY. It is the world saying: “WE WILL LIVE WITHOUT GOD.” --- THE KING OF THE NORTH: COUNTERFEIT RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY The King of the North is not open atheism. It is religion in a counterfeit form— a power that claims spiritual authority while opposing God’s Word. Lucifer said: “I will sit also upon the mount… in the sides of the north… I will be like the most High.” — Isaiah 14:13-14 Daniel describes a power that would: “Speak great words against the Most High.” “Wear out the saints of the Most High.” “Think to change times and laws.” — Daniel 7:25 Revelation shows the same power receiving worldwide admiration: “His deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” — Revelation 13:3 THE SOUTH SAYS: “NO GOD.” THE NORTH SAYS: “WE SPEAK FOR GOD.” One rejects God openly. The other replaces God’s authority religiously. One attacks God’s existence. The other attacks God’s law. One destroys faith by unbelief. The other corrupts faith by tradition. BOTH ARE DANGEROUS— BECAUSE BOTH LEAD THE SOUL AWAY FROM OBEDIENCE TO GOD. --- THE ROLE OF THE PAPACY In historic Bible prophecy, the papacy is not merely a church organization. It is a religious-political system that claimed authority over kings, conscience, doctrine, worship, and the law of God. Its final prophetic role is this: TO BECOME THE CENTER OF A GLOBAL RELIGIOUS UNITY THAT EXALTS HUMAN AUTHORITY ABOVE GOD’S WORD. This is not hatred toward people. God has sincere souls everywhere. The issue is not individuals. The issue is the system of authority. When any power claims the right to change God’s law, define worship by tradition, unite church with civil power, and pressure conscience by law, prophecy identifies the spirit of the beast. “The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty.” — The Great Controversy, p. 605 “The substitution of the laws of men for the law of God… is the last act in the drama.” — Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 7, p. 141 THE FINAL COUNTERFEIT WILL LOOK CHRISTIAN— BUT IT WILL REST ON HUMAN AUTHORITY ABOVE SCRIPTURE. --- HOW THESE POWERS REVIVE The King of the South revives when the world grows bold in secularism, unbelief, rebellion, and rejection of God’s authority. It says: “No absolute truth.” “No Creator.” “No divine law.” “No judgment.” “No need to obey God.” But the King of the North revives when a frightened world—tired of moral collapse, crisis, disorder, and confusion—turns to religious authority for unity and control. Then the wound heals. The world wonders. Religion regains political influence. Civil power supports religious decrees. Conscience becomes pressured. Worship becomes the test. “Power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” — Revelation 13:7 “He causeth all… to receive a mark.” — Revelation 13:16 “At the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him…” — Daniel 11:40 At first, secularism pushes against religious authority. But prophecy shows that in the end, the King of the North rises with power. THE WORLD WILL RUN FROM GODLESS CHAOS— ONLY TO EMBRACE RELIGIOUS DECEPTION. That is why the final deception will be so powerful. It will not look evil to the world. It will look necessary. Moral. Unifying. Peaceful. The answer to global crisis. But if it replaces God’s commandments with man’s laws, it is not revival. IT IS BABYLON DRESSED IN CHRISTIAN LANGUAGE. --- THE GLORIOUS LAND IS TESTED “He shall enter also into the glorious land…” — Daniel 11:41 In the last-day application, this points to the sphere of God’s professed people and truth. The danger is not only Babylon attacking from outside. It is Babylon entering the church through compromise. THE FINAL CRISIS WILL REVEAL WHO HAS TRUTH ONLY IN THE MIND— AND WHO HAS TRUTH SETTLED IN THE SOUL. Some who claim truth will fall. Some who seem far away will respond to the Loud Cry. “Come out of her, My people.”— Rev. 18:4 SOME OUTSIDE NOW WILL COME IN. SOME INSIDE NOW WILL BE SHAKEN OUT. That should humble us. --- THE MESSAGE THAT TROUBLES THE BEAST “Tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him…” — Daniel 11:44 From the east comes the sealing message: “Another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God.” — Revelation 7:2 These tidings point to Heaven’s final warning: The seal of God. The commandments of God. The faith of Jesus. Creator worship. The Sabbath truth. The warning against the beast and his mark. The soon return of Christ. “The earth was lightened with his glory.” — Revelation 18:1 THE LOUD CRY WILL TROUBLE THE BEAST BECAUSE IT EXPOSES HIS COUNTERFEIT AUTHORITY. --- WHY THE BEAST BECOMES FURIOUS “He shall go forth with great fury to destroy…” — Daniel 11:44 Because truth exposes false worship. The Sabbath exposes counterfeit authority. The commandments expose lawlessness. The seal of God exposes the mark of the beast. The faith of Jesus exposes empty religion. “The dragon was wroth… and went to make war with the remnant.” — Revelation 12:17 WHEN ERROR CANNOT ANSWER TRUTH BY SCRIPTURE, IT TURNS TO FORCE. Cain killed Abel. Jezebel hunted Elijah. Babylon threw the Hebrews into the furnace. Religious leaders crucified Christ. False worship always becomes coercive when truth refuses to bow. --- BUT HE COMES TO HIS END “Yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” — Daniel 11:45 This is our hope. The beast may rise. The world may wonder. The laws may enforce. The remnant may be threatened. But God has already written the ending. THE BEAST WILL RAGE— BUT MICHAEL WILL STAND. “At that time shall Michael stand up…” — Daniel 12:1 When the enemy reaches for God’s people, Christ rises for their deliverance. --- THE FINAL ISSUE IS AUTHORITY Daniel 11 is not merely about armies. It is about worship. Authority. Obedience. The law of God. The faith of Jesus. The seal of God versus the mark of the beast. Who rules the conscience? Christ or man? Scripture or tradition? God’s law or human law? The Creator’s Sabbath or counterfeit worship? The Lamb or the beast? Revelation 14 gives Heaven’s answer: “Worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea…” — Revelation 14:7 This language points back to the Sabbath commandment: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is…” — Exodus 20:11 THE BEAST POINTS TO HUMAN AUTHORITY. THE REMNANT POINTS TO CREATOR AUTHORITY. The beast enforces worship. The Lamb calls for loyalty. The beast uses pressure. Christ uses truth. The beast marks the hand or forehead. God seals the forehead. The beast gathers the world. Christ gathers the faithful. Beloved, Daniel 11 is not given so we can win arguments. It is given so we can survive deception. Do not follow the South into godless rebellion. Do not follow the North into counterfeit worship. Atheism cannot save. Tradition cannot save. Human authority cannot save. Church-state power cannot save. Only Christ saves. Only Scripture is safe. Only the Lamb is worthy to follow. “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” — Revelation 14:4 Do not only ask: “Who is the King of the North?” “Who is the King of the South?” “What event comes next?” Ask: Am I settled into truth? Have I left Egypt in my heart? Have I come out of Babylon in my life? Do I worship the Creator? Will I obey God above man? Am I ready when Michael stands up? KNOWING PROPHECY WILL NOT SAVE THE SOUL THAT REFUSES SURRENDER. The King of the South will push. The King of the North will rise. The world will wonder. The beast will rage. The Loud Cry will sound. The remnant will stand. Michael will rise. God’s people will be delivered. WHEN THE SOUTH SAYS, “NO GOD,” STAND WITH THE CREATOR. WHEN THE NORTH SAYS, “FOLLOW OUR AUTHORITY,” STAND WITH THE BIBLE. WHEN THE WORLD WONDERS AFTER THE BEAST, FOLLOW THE LAMB. THE FINAL QUESTION WILL NOT BE: “WHO WAS POPULAR?” IT WILL BE: “WHO WAS LOYAL?”