Herbert W Armstrong

   Why do the churches of traditional Christianity observe Sunday? The people of the Muslim religion, the entire Arab world, observe Friday, and the Jewish people, of Judaism the religion of Judaism, observe Saturday. There is one God, and yet we have so many religions and so many beliefs. There is one Christ, and yet so many churches claiming to be Christian, claiming to follow Christ, and yet all different. Everyone different from the other. Everyone thinking it is right, and the others are wrong. Something is wrong somewhere. What is it? When was the Lord's Day of the New Testament started? How did it start? And by what authority? You know, the answer is rather shocking. It did shock me at age 34, and it was 57 years ago now. I was really shocked. My wife came to me, and we were visiting with my parents up in Salem, Oregon. We had just come out from the Midwest, and my wife said she was going to start keeping Saturday instead of Sunday. And I was shocked. To me, that was religious fanaticism. My wife becoming a religious fanatic.

   You know, I was very proud. I had been in business and been quite successful in business. I began to think, what would my business associates think? What will my business customers think with a religious fanatical wife? I argued. I said, well, the Bible says, thou shalt keep Sunday. She says, does it? Well, can you show me where it says that? I said, no, I didn't know much about the Bible. I've been brought up in a Protestant church. Of course, it was observing Sunday like Protestants do. But at age 18, I had just dropped out of church attendance. As long as my parents took me to Sunday school and the church, I continued to go. But by age 18, I got interested in business, and my whole mind was on business, and I just quit attending church. And at that time, I didn't know anything about the Bible.

   My wife says, well, if you will show me where the Bible says to observe Sunday, then I'll go back to it and keep it just like I always did. Well, I had to begin to study in order to save our marriage because that was a very serious thing. Now, actually, my marriage lasted 50 years until death did us part, as a marriage should. And I didn't want to have any separation from my dear wife, you can be sure. And of course, I never did. But I was challenged, and I went into an in-depth research and study. I studied all the history of these things and how they happened. And then I began, for the first time in my life, to really study the Bible and see what it said and what the authority was.

   Now, I began to wonder, even does God exist? As I studied, I began to think, well, I've always assumed there is a God. And I was brought up, I believe, in God. I was brought up, as I said, in church until I was 18 years old. And so, I studied history, and for the first time in my life, I began to study the Bible, and I found a lot of shocking surprises. I told my wife, I knew the Bible said that we're commanded to keep Sunday because all the churches do. And I said, don't the churches get their religion out of the Bible? And my wife said, well, do they? Well, I suppose they did, don't you think the churches all get their religion out of the Bible? You know, you might stop to think if they do, why do they all differ? And why does one believe one thing and another believe something else, and no two of them seem to agree or get along with the same thing?

   Now, I found when I studied the Bible that Jesus Christ said, I will build my church. He didn't say churches; he said church. But today, we find hundreds of Christian denominations all calling themselves Christians. Then we have the Jewish religion, and we have the Muslim religion, and of course, we have many other religions, especially over in Asia and the Far East and the Middle East and so on. Well, in my in-depth study, I researched both history and the Bible, as I said. Now let me show you some of the things that I found. Let me go into history a little bit.

   In the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, I found in a book called The Faith of Our Fathers, a Catholic publication, the 11th edition on page 89. It was by Cardinal Gibbons of the Roman Catholic Church, and this was an official publication. Quote: "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 sanctified." That is the Roman Catholic Church, and that is an official publication of the Roman Catholic Church.

   Now I went a little further, and from the Catholic doctrinal catechism, which is taught to Catholics and especially taught to children growing up in the Catholic Church, a catechism that gives you questions and answers all the way through. All right. Here, is a question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church, the Catholic Church, has power to institute the festivals of precept? Answer: Now this is the Catholic Church's official answer. Had she not such power, she should not have done that which all modern religionists agree with her. She would 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. That's the official catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.

   Now, continuing, is another question: When the Protestants do profane work, that is, just regular work, not religious work, but profane work, on Saturday, do they follow the scripture as their own rule of faith? Do they find this permission, that is, to work on Saturday, in the sacred volume? Answer: On the contrary, they have only the authority of tradition, and here they mean the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of God's commandments, which he has never abrogated. Here in the Catholic catechism, they say that Protestants who do work on Saturday or go out in their sports, their labor, their work, that they are violating the commands of God and violating the teaching of the Bible. And then they quote from the Bible, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day." That is the Roman Catholic teaching.

   You know, most of us have grown up believing certain things. And as a very well-known philosopher wrote recently, one seldom inquires in retrospect why he believes the things he does, how he came to believe them, and why he is so convinced that what he believes is right and others who disagree are wrong. Did you ever stop to wonder why you believe the things you believe? Well, I have researched that too, and I find that most of us just believe what we've been taught. We believe what we have read. We believe what, well, children growing up, we believe what our peers, other children of our age, believe. We believe what we've been taught in school. We believe what we hear all around us and what other people around us. Why is it that in the Arab world they all observe Friday, for example? Why is it? Why is it the Jews all observe Saturday? Because they've been taught it by their parents. I don't think the average Jew has looked in the Bible to see why he's been taught it. And most people just believe whatever others around them believe. They go along with the crowd. Isn't that what you've done? I think we need to begin to think about that.

   Now, then I went a little further from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, volume 14. Now, this is quoted by Protestants as well as Catholics and is an authoritative one and quoted from an edict of the Council of Laodicea in 363 A.D. Was this quote: "Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, that is, Saturday, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord's Day," when they called Sunday the Lord's Day. Now, something that a lot of people don't know, that edict in 363 A.D. simply meant the church pronounced them anathema from Christ if they kept Saturday and worked on Sunday. And at that time, the church was, you might say, riding on the government and guiding it. The church was superior to the government. And when the church pronounced them anathema from Christ, the government stepped in and arrested them. And there were millions of people, as you find in history, you should read Fox's Book of Martyrs, for example, and other historic authorities. Millions were terribly persecuted, and perhaps millions even tortured to death for observing Saturday instead of Sunday, and people were being commanded to observe Sunday.

   Now let's go a little further. Let's look to the Methodists now. From a theological dictionary by Charles Buck, a Methodist publication, I find this quote: "Sabbath in the Hebrew language signifies rest and is the seventh day of the week, or Saturday, as we call it today. And it must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament covering the first day or Sunday." Now, that is a confession from the Methodist Church.

   All right, let's look next at the Presbyterian Church, which originated in Scotland. In the Christian At Work it was copyrighted in April 19, 1883, the year 1883 and again January 1884, quote: "Some have tried to build the observance of Sunday upon an apostolic command, whereas the Apostles gave no command of the matter at all. The truth is, as soon as we appeal to the literal writing of the Bible, the Sabbatarians have the best of the argument." And the Presbyterians admit there's no authority for Sunday, but that the Bible enforces Saturday instead.

   Now, these things were real shocking to me back in the year of 1933, autumn and winter of 1933 and on into the spring of 1934. Now, the Church of England, let's see what they teach. In a catechism by Isaac Williams, Doctor of Divinity, volume one: Quote "And 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 of the week instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things." And by that, he meant Christmas, New Year's Day, Easter, Halloween, many other days that are observed. You can't find any of those things in the Bible.

   Now, as I studied. Now, I began to go to the Bible. Jesus said he would rise the third day, and it had to be three days and three nights. Now, you go back and read in the book of Jonah, and you will find that when God told him to go and carry a message to Nineveh, he tried to run away from God and run away from the command that he had been commissioned to do. And he got on a ship, and he was thrown overboard. God had him thrown overboard and had prepared a great fish to swallow him up. And Jonah said that in the belly of the grave, while he was in that fish's belly, he cried to God and it is called a grave. He was vomited up as Christ was raised after three days and three nights. After which Jonah, a type of Christ, went and saved the city of Nineveh from a great destruction that was coming by preaching a warning to repent. They did repent, but gentiles would, but our people will not. That's a peculiar thing.

   So, the crucifixion had to be three days and three nights. Now you can't figure that from a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday morning resurrection. Well, the answer is this: he was crucified on Wednesday, and the Sabbath was drawing on. And that Sabbath Day, you will read in John 19:31, that Sabbath day was a High Day. Ask any Jew what is a High Day, and he'll tell you that's an annual Sabbath. It can come on Monday, on Thursday, on any day of the week. He was crucified on Wednesday. Thursday was an annual Sabbath Day in that year, 31 A.D. And we have even researched it and found that there's been no change in the weeks and in the days from that time, and in that year, it was on Thursday, he was crucified on Wednesday, and he was in the grave all Wednesday night, and Thursday night, and Friday night. And that's three nights. He was in the grave all day Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday. And in the end of the Sabbath, as it says in Matthew 28, verse one (Matthew 28:1), he rose. And Sunday morning, when they came, he had already risen. He had risen in the end of the Sabbath the night before. And Sunday morning, you find the Bible says he was risen, which is past perfect tense. He had already risen, not he was rising, but he was already risen. So, the day that followed the crucifixion was an annual Sabbath and not a weekly Sabbath.

   I have a book that will explain all of that, and I'm going to offer it in just a few moments if you will listen before the close of the program. So, every foundation of Sunday sacredness crumbles. Why do people observe Sunday? They say because the resurrection was on Sunday. It was not. The resurrection was on Saturday, Saturday evening, just before sunset, or practically at sunset. Now, some of these things are rather shocking. They're rather astounding. I had to face all of this 57 years ago. Now, Jesus, you read in Luke 4:16, went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as his custom was. It was the custom of Jesus to observe the Sabbath and go into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.

   Then the Apostle Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. Many of them say that Jesus nailed the commandments to the cross. Paul is the one who brought the doctrine for Gentiles. Well, in Acts 17:22 (Acts 17:2), you will find where Paul was preaching to Gentiles every Sabbath day. Now, that's Acts chapter 17 and verse 2. I won't take the time to read that just now, but you will find it there. And then Paul said in I Corinthians 11:1, "Be you followers of me as I follow Christ." He observed the Sabbath and preached to the Gentiles on the Sabbath, and the Gentiles came to hear him on the Sabbath, and he taught the Gentiles to keep the Sabbath. And he followed Christ, and he said, be followers of me as I follow Christ. So there was an absolute command from the Apostle Paul to keep the Sabbath, which was Saturday instead of Sunday. Yes, I'll say these things are a little bit shocking. You can imagine how shocked I was.

   Well, the New Testament Lord's Day, what is the New Testament Lord's Day? In Mark 2:28, you will read where Jesus himself said, "The Son of Man therefore is the Lord of the Sabbath." Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath, Saturday. Well, then that must be the Lord's Day if he's Lord of it. Saturday is the Lord's Day where it speaks of the Lord's Day in Revelation chapter one and verse 10 (Revelation 1:10). And speaking of the day of the Lord, a different period of time altogether and not a day of the week, the horn speaks of the Lord's Day. Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath.

   Now, why? Will you go back to Genesis 1:1, the very beginning of the Bible says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God is in the plural, more than one person. Verse 26 (Genesis 1:26), God, which in the Hebrew word was Elohim, which is a plural, meaning more than one person, which could be just Gods, said, "Let us, not me, let us make man in our image." God said to the one who later became Jesus, "Let us make man in our image," and God made man in his image. Now, before God instructed the first man that he created anything, before he took him into the Garden of Eden, before he gave him any teaching whatsoever, you read in the second chapter of Genesis, the first three verses (Genesis 2:1-3), of how God ended his work of creating which he had made in the first chapter of Genesis and rested on the Sabbath day and put his blessing on it and set that day apart. And it was made for man. When man was made, he had created man on that sixth day, and the last thing that he did on the sixth day of the week was create man. He created animals before that on that same day. Later, he created man. The last thing he did on the sixth day of the week, which we would call Friday today. And then on the day that today we would call Saturday, he rested and was refreshed and put his presence in that day and put his blessing on that day and set it apart to be observed.

   Now, in the Ten Commandments, God said one of the Ten Commandments: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." That is a command from God. Now, it's one of the Ten Commandments. In I John 2:4, you read, "If any man says, I know him," I have asked ministers, "Do you know the Lord?" And they say, "Oh, yes, praise his name, I know him." "Do you keep his commandments?" He said, "No, I don't keep his commandments. They were nailed to the cross. His commandments are done away." And I tell you, nearly every Protestant minister will tell you that today. I John 2:4: "If any man says, I know him and does not keep his commandments, that man is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Now, those are pretty strong words that are in your Bible. What about the ministers that say, I know him and do not keep his commandments? One of those commandments is the Sabbath, and the thing is they would, they were willing to accept any one of the Ten Commandments except that fourth commandment which says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." That's a command from God, and it has never been abrogated, it has never been changed. And so, says the Catholic catechism, so says the Methodist church, so say the Presbyterian church, so says the Church of England, and I've given you the history of it.

   Now, what is sin? Jesus came to pay the penalty of sin. You read in Romans 6:23, the last verse: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." What is sin? I asked some ministers one time, and they wouldn't answer me. They knew the answer, but they didn't dare quote the scripture because it's in I John 3:4. And there, I John 3:4, turn to your own Bible. Read it. Don't be afraid of it, read it. Don't believe me, believe your Bible, believe God. We're living in a nation that does not believe God. We put on our money, "In God we trust," but we disobey God. We don't trust him. And it's about time this nation wakes up. This nation is under a curse. God says if we don't tithe, this whole nation is under a curse, and we don't believe in tithing. Tithing is holy to God. The Sabbath is holy to God, and we're putting no difference between the holy and the profane in this nation.

   I John 3:4: "Sin is the transgression of the law," and the law is a spiritual law, and it's composed of Ten Commandments. It's a law of love. It's divided into the two great laws, love toward God and love toward neighbors, human beings. And the Ten Commandments, the first four tell you how to love God, the last six tell you how to love neighbor, and sin is violating that law in principle and in spirit, much more than just the letter. Jesus Christ said, "Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." That means you right now. "Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." What is the gospel of Jesus Christ? He came unto Galilee preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying, "The Kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye and believe the gospel." Repent and believe. Now, what does repent mean? It doesn't mean just be sorry; it means turn around and go the other way. What way are you to go? What do you have to repent of? Sin. Sin is the transgression of the law.

   I want to tell you this nation, this whole nation is under a curse. Things are going wrong with us, and the British nation has already gone down, and we're going down ourselves in the United States because we are disobeying the great God that has given us the prosperity that we have and gives us the breath we breathe, and we're disobeying him. And the churches are doing it. And it's about time some voice cries out and shows the people their sins, as you read in Isaiah 58:1. I'm trying to do that, and I get persecuted for it just as Jesus was persecuted. Repent and believe are the twin conditions of salvation. On the day of Pentecost, they asked Peter how to be saved. He said, "Repent." That's turn around, quit doing the way you have done, and do what God commands. It means keep the Sabbath. It means begin to tithe 10% of your gross income, and then God will bless you financially. And he also will bless you spiritually. All of those things Jesus said, "Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish."

   Now, I would like to ask you, I see time. I'm running out of time, and I have a booklet I'd like to send you. The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday. The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday, but on the Sabbath. Here's another booklet about The Christian Sabbath. Write in for this booklet. It will give you all. It's quite a heavy booklet. It will give you a lot of scriptures, and it's well illustrated. Which Is the Christian Sabbath? Write in for those booklets. There is no charge and no follow-up. And we'll also give you a year's subscription to the world's finest magazine and one of its largest circulating magazines, over 7 million copies a month, The Plain Truth. Now, all you do, you just send your request to me, Herbert W. Armstrong. So, until next time, Herbert W. Armstrong. Goodbye, friends.

   You have heard The World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong brought to you by the Worldwide Church of God. For literature offered on this program, send your request along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 44, Vancouver, BC, or dial this toll-free number: 1-800-663-2345. In British Columbia, dial 112-800-663-2345.