Remember the Sabbath day

The commandment that has been deliberately hidden by traditional liturgical Christian denominations, and today, we will understand why they concealed it.
The LORD God says in the commandment, in Exodus 20:
“8- Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9- Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10- But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11- For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
It is a clear and direct commandment, affirming that the seventh day—that is, Saturday—must be a holy day unto the LORD for us.
“Saturday” – “Sabbath” – “Shabbat” means “day of rest” in Hebrew.
The LORD God, as the Creator of all things, knows perfectly well that we, as humans, need a day of rest so that our bodies can continue functioning in the best possible way. And the LORD knows exactly which day we should rest.
It’s like buying a device and refusing to follow the instruction manual that came with it, and which was designed to help you use it properly. Naturally, you won’t get the best performance out of it unless you follow the guide. That’s how it is with keeping the commandments: they are the user manual for life.
So, do you want to live on this earth with dignity, honor, and blessing?
Here are the commandments; they are keys to blessings on earth. If we walk according to them, the LORD will keep His covenant with us, and we will live with Him. But if we break them, our life on earth will stumble.

Why did God establish a day of rest?
The Holy Bible tells us that every creature—whether human or animal, and even the earth itself—needs a day of rest. The earth requires a full year of rest so that humans can continue to harvest its crops properly.
In Leviticus 25: “3- Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
4- But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5- That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.”
In the same way, your body, soul, mind, and emotions need one day of rest every week in order to continue progressing with health and fruitfulness.
Our LORD knows what His creatures need in order to endure, because He is their Creator and Maker. That is why He gave us a day of rest. We humans, by our nature, are a consuming people, constantly chasing after a relentless cycle that has exhausted both us and the earth along with its resources.

Why is Saturday specifically the holy day of rest?
Genesis 2: “1- Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2- And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.
3- And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.”
Some raise doubts about this verse, asking: “Does the LORD get tired and need rest?” The answer is: of course not. He “rested from creation,” meaning He completed the work of creation.
From the very beginning of creation, the LORD God showed us how He deals with us as His children. He treated us like a Father, giving us an example through His own work so that we might follow His example. Since God Himself rested on the seventh day after six days of work, then it is necessary for us to rest one day as well.

What does the rest of the LORD God mean?
In Hebrews 4, we find a clear promise about entering the rest of the LORD—the Kingdom. As the Holy Bible teaches us in the Epistle to Hebrews, there are people who are deprived of entering the LORD God’s rest, as it is written about them:
Hebrews 3:11 “They shall not enter into my rest.”
We see the LORD Jesus Christ in the New Testament also caring about our rest.
In the Gospel according to Mark 6, we read that after the LORD Jesus sent His disciples to the towns and villages, giving them authority to preach, teach, heal the sick, and cast out demons, they returned and reported to Him all they had done. Then the LORD Jesus said to them: “31- … Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while”
Why can’t we choose any other day of the week instead of the Sabbath (Saturday) to make holy for the LORD?
Because the LORD Himself specified the seventh day and called it the Sabbath (Saturday), as stated in Exodus 20:11 “wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” We do not have the right to change what He has established according to our own will, as it is also written in Leviticus 23:3 “but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation”
Is Saturday (the Sabbath) only for the Jews? And is it merely a law of the Old Testament and not the New Testament?
The LORD says in Exodus 31:16 “to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.”
This means it is an everlasting covenant between the LORD God and the human beings who believe in Him. The LORD Jesus Christ says in Matthew 5:
“17- Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18- For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
The term “son of Israel” does not mean the literal child of a specific man; otherwise, all the commandments would only apply to the sons of Jacob. But in the Holy Bible, “son of Israel” means child of the promise. The LORD Jesus Christ came from the lineage of Israel to make us all children of Israel, that is, children of the promise. As it is written in the Gospel, in Galatians 4:28 “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.”
And also in Romans 9:8 “That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.”
So, the promises of the LORD God are for all nations. When He says “children of Israel,” He means all who believe in and follow the LORD God, from the Old Testament to His incarnation in the LORD Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
So then, the Sabbath is not an eternal sign only for the children of Israel, but also for us. Isaiah 56: “5- Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
6-… every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant;
7- Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer”
So, the Sabbath is an eternal covenant between the LORD God and those who keep His covenant and His law. He is faithful and just to fulfill His promises and covenants to us. If we keep His commandments and hold fast to His promises, He will be with us, as He says in Isaiah 56:2 “Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it”
As the Holy Bible tells us in the Book of Ezekiel 22, about the punishment of the church and the priests who violate the sanctification of the Sabbath Day (Saturday) “26- Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned Mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.”
The message is clear in the Holy Bible: Sanctify the LORD, and He will sanctify you! Keep His commandments, and He will keep you! But if you defile His covenants, your life will become defiled.
Now comes the most important question: What happened after two thousand years that caused Christians to stop sanctifying Saturday, and Sunday became the holy day instead?
Why did Christians break the Fourth Commandment, despite how clearly it is stated in the Holy Bible?
Did the LORD Jesus Christ abolish the Sabbath (Saturday)?
The answer: No, the LORD Jesus Christ did not abolish the Sabbath (Saturday). He clearly affirmed that He is LORD of the Sabbath as well, meaning that not only YHWH, the God of the Old Covenant, is LORD of the Sabbath, but also the Son is LORD of the Sabbath. Is there a single verse in the Holy Bible where the LORD Jesus says He abolished the Sabbath (Saturday)? Or that He relieved us from sanctifying it? The answer is, of course: No.
If we believe that Christ is the Word of God, and that He and God are one, then is it conceivable that God would change His Word between the Old Testament and the New Testament? Or that He would break His promises and covenants?
Many references in the Gospel show that the LORD Jesus and His disciples would spend the Sabbath (Saturday)praying in the temple, not on Sunday:
– Mark 1:21 “And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day He entered into the synagogue, and taught.”
– Mark 6:2 “And when the sabbath day was come, He began to teach in the synagogue”
– Luke 4:16 “And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.”
– Luke 6:6 “And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that He entered into the synagogue and taught”
– Luke 4:31 “And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days.”
We find dozens of verses in the Gospel, too many to include in a single article, that show the LORD Jesus kept the Sabbath (Saturday), sanctified it, and taught us how to honor it. We also see that the disciples and apostles in the early Church sanctified the Sabbath as well.
– Acts of the Apostles 13:14 “and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.” As the apostles and the disciples of the LORD preached on the Sabbath. We also see that the Gentiles requested Paul and Barnabas to continue preaching on the following Sabbath:
Acts 13: “42- And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
44- And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.”
Acts 16:13 “And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made”
This is what was recorded regarding Paul and Timothy. So then, the LORD taught on the Sabbath (Saturday), and the disciples preached and prayed on the Sabbath day (Saturday).
Let us also note that most of the miracles of the LORD Jesus were intentionally performed on the Sabbath, as recorded in:
– Matthew 12:10 “And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days?”
– Mark 3:5 “He saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.”
– He also healed the woman who had a spirit of infirmity and had been bent over for eighteen years, as written in Luke 13: “13- And He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
16- … whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?”
– He cast out the unclean spirit from the man possessed by a demon on the Sabbath, as recorded in Mark 1:25 “And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.”
And on that same day, the Holy Bible tells us that He healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and healed many others as well:
Mark 1 “29- And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
30- But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell Him of her.
31- And He came and took Her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.
32- And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils.
33- And all the city was gathered together at the door.
34- And He healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew Him.”
Why did the LORD perform all these miracles on the Sabbath, and why did the Holy Bible, inspired by the Holy Spirit, insist on mentioning that they took place specifically on that day?
Because the LORD came to make the Jews understand and say to them: “You stiff-necked people,” since they understood the commandment in its literal sense, that no work at all should be done, not even acts of kindness. So, the LORD Jesus taught them how the Sabbath (Saturday) should truly be kept holy, just as the Heavenly Father intended.
The Jews clung to the commandment as if it were an ordinance or a restriction, but the LORD Jesus Christ broke the ordinances, that is, the rigid mechanism with which the Jews applied the commandment.
The LORD Jesus did not break the commandment, because the commandments of God, written by His own finger on the tablets given to the prophet Moses, are one and unchanging.
This literal Jewish understanding of the commandments remains a problem even today, as we find that some people become “Sabbatarians,” interpreting the commandments in a literal way, and “the letter killeth.” From this, we understand what the LORD said in Mark 2:27 “And He said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath”
The Jews misunderstood how to sanctify this day, to the point where they wouldn’t even move on it, wouldn’t rescue a donkey if it fell, and wouldn’t help anyone on the Sabbath (Saturday)! So, the LORD Jesus came to teach them how to truly sanctify it: through healing, performing miracles, prayer, preaching, teaching, and praising.
And from this, we also understand the words of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:16 “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days” meaning: do not be slaves to rituals and ordinances, but carry out the commandment without letting anyone judge you based on the manner of its observance.
Unfortunately, nominal Christians—those who do not read the Holy Bible—have allowed their denominations to judge them regarding festivals, dietary rules during fasts, and other matters that are not actual commandments. Yet at the same time, they have willfully broken the commandment to keep Saturday holy, under the pretense that they don’t want to be judged by anyone! Indeed, it is a case of double standards.
But the question remains: Why did the churches change the Sabbath day (Saturday) and make it Sunday, thereby breaking the commandment?
Some people argue using a verse from Acts 20:7 “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread” and they claim: since the Holy Bible mentions that the disciples gathered on the first day of the week (i.e., Sunday) to break bread, then Sunday became the holy day.
But if we continue reading the texts in the Book of Acts, we will see that the disciples gathered every day, not just on the first day of the week, as it is written in Acts 2:46 “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house” So, according to the literal interpretation used by some denominations, does this mean we are supposed to partake in communion every single day? And who said that “breaking bread” here specifically means receiving communion, in which we partake of the Body and Blood of the LORD?
On the contrary, the disciples’ gathering on Sunday to eat as brothers means that they were dedicating the Sabbath solely to prayers and preaching, not to meetings and socializing, which they postponed to Sunday and the other days. Others also say that Sunday is the holy day because the LORD Jesus rose from the dead on that day. However, in this case, you need to prove Christ’s resurrection on Sunday, even with a single clear verse stating that the LORD rose from the dead on the first day of the week, or on Sunday.
In fact, the women went to the tomb and found it empty early on the first day of the week—that is, at dawn between three and five in the morning, according to Jewish time. This does not mean that the LORD rose on Sunday; rather, it means that when they arrived, He had already risen, as the tomb was already empty. This indicates that the resurrection may have occurred the day before, that is, on Saturday.
Therefore, you should ask the liturgical churches that believe Christ rose on Sunday: Why then do the Orthodox and Catholics celebrate the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Saturday, if they believe He rose on Sunday? You will not find a single convincing answer from them, because the truth they do not want you to know is that the Eastern Church was forced by the Western Church to make Sunday (Sun-day), which the Romans used to worship as the day of the sun god, into the holy day of Christianity after Rome declared its conversion to Christianity. Unfortunately, this happened while preserving their idols (statues) and the pagan holy day. This declaration was made in 300 AD by Constantine, the pagan Roman emperor who died without being baptized, and whom the liturgical churches today falsely call the “Equal of the Apostles.”
(I invite you to watch the episode titled “The Truth about the Catholic Church? With Maggie Khozam”) to learn more about the pagan origins of the worship practices carried out by churches today. It was not only about Rome forcing the churches, but also at that time, the Jews were compelled to adopt the Gregorian calendar, causing even the Jews to err in calculating the Sabbath day. This continued up to Islam, which established Friday as the holy day, making Saturday a day for work and leisure across what is known as the “Arab world.”
A woman told me that she was suffering from back pain, and when I asked her about how she observed the Sabbath (Saturday), it turned out she was doing all the household chores on that day, thinking she was preparing herself and her home for Sunday. I advised her not to work, neither inside the house nor outside, on Saturday, and to finish her tasks before Friday evening. Indeed, she told me in less than a month that she had been healed.
How do we sanctify the Sabbath (Saturday)?
Its very name points to how it should be sanctified: Saturday is a holy day of rest for the LORD. This means staying at home with your family, praying, singing praises, and performing acts of service for the LORD God.
It is a day of rest from work and exhausting social activities—a day of rest for the body, soul, and mind from all material concerns.
Try keeping Saturday as it pleases God, and you will be surprised to find that it is a key to blessings that had been hidden from you.
And do not fear closing your shops on Saturday, for God will not allow you to lose or lack resources. As He says in Exodus 16:26 about provision; He sent bread for two days to the Israelites on the day before the Sabbath to compensate them for the seventh day.
In the end, I say to you before it is too late: woe to us if the LORD demands His Sabbath as He demands His tithes.
If you were to look back at those you know who, in their old age, have suffered painful conditions like paralysis or the inability to work, you would find that they were forced to keep the Sabbath (Saturday) involuntarily, and they became unable to do any work. And if you reflect on their past, you would see that they were among those who never knew the taste of rest, with all their days spent working and chasing after money.
Let us keep the LORD’s covenants and honor His Sabbaths (Saturdays), so that we are not forced into rest against our will.

May the LORD forgive our sins and our ignorance of the things we do not know. May He pardon our lack of understanding, and may He help and strengthen us to keep His commandments and hold fast to them forever.
The LORD says in Ezekiel 20:12 “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.” And I say, Amen.
So, how many of us today will vow before the LORD to keep the Sabbath (Saturday)?

September / 3 / 2020