If There is a Right Way, There is a Right Day
Just as there is a right way of worshipping God, there is also a right day in which to do it.
"Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." - Genesis 2:3
The seventh day is so important to God that one of the Ten Commandments is to observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath day of the Lord.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." - Exodus 20:8-11
God wants us to observe the Sabbath day which is the seventh day of the week. On this day more than any other, God wants to be recognized by being worshipped the right way, His way. It is so important to Him that we keep Saturday as the Sabbath day, that He promises blessings on those who keep Saturday as the Sabbath day of the Lord.
"Blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who lays hold on it; Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing evil." - Isaiah 56:2
"If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the Lord honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken" - Isaiah 58:13-14
But just as there are blessings for those who keep the Sabbath, there is also a penalty of death for anyone who does not keep the Sabbath.
"You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people." - Exodus 31:14
But some will say that the Sabbath, being sunset on Friday until sunset at Saturday, was given to the Jews and therefore not binding on Christians and will cite verse 16 of Exodus 31 to make their point.
"Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed." - Exodus 31:16-17
This Scripture teaches us two things which are not very obvious if we are not familiar with God's word. First, notice that God says, "the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath..." We must remember that before there was such a nation of Israel, there was a man who's name was Israel. But his original name was not Israel, but Jacob. God changed this man's name to Israel.
"...Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel..." - Genesis 32:28
Second, notice that going back to Exodus 31:16-17, God mentions the six days of creation and states that He rested on the seventh day. In other words, He instituted the Sabbath at the end of the creation, long before there were different races of people.
I want to make one more important point before we bring it all together and we go into the Sabbath keeping in the New Testament. Jacob who became Israel had a dream before he wrestled with the angel that changed his name. In that dream God speaks to him and tells him the following.
"And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." - Genesis 28:14
Here God is telling Jacob, before he becomes Israel, that his descendants will be too numerous to be counted and that they would be found all over the world. Now based on this, if we insert the name Jacob for Israel in Exodus 31:16, then that scripture would read like this and would make its meaning crystal clear.
"Therefore the children of Jacob shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant." - Exodus 31:16
Do you see it? God is not only talking of the descendants of Jacob who would be Jewish by birth and religion, but of every descendant of Jacob who would go out into the world and not be a follower of Judaism only, but a believer in God. That is why Jesus said the following.
"And He said unto them, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." - Mark 2:27
Notice that Jesus used the word "man" meaning all humanity. He did not use the word Jews or Israelites. In other words, He is saying that the Sabbath was made for all humans, regardless of their religion, culture, or race because the Sabbath was instituted long before there were religions, cultures, and races of men. It was instituted after God had ended all creation on the seventh day. Thus the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord, this being Saturday and not Sunday which is the first day of the week. But there will still be some who will say that after Jesus' resurrection, His disciples no longer kept Saturday, but Sunday as the Sabbath. And they will cite scriptural passages that according to them support this. Let's look at those scriptural passages to see if that is what they teach or simply have been misunderstood by so many. But first let me cite some scriptural passages where we see that Jesus Himself kept the Sabbath.
"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 to read." - Luke 4:16
"And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days." - Luke 4:31
"And it came to pass also on another Sabbath, that He entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. - Luke 6:6
"And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath." - Luke 13:10
Here we have several scriptural passages where we are told that Jesus kept the Sabbath. He kept the Sabbath because He knew the significance and importance of that most holy day. Now let's see if His apostles and disciples kept the Sabbath, which is Saturday, even after His resurrection.
"But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down." - Acts 13:14
Here in Acts 13:14, we have Paul and other followers of Jesus going into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.
"And on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city by a riverside, where prayer was customarily to be made; we sat down, and spake unto women which met there." - Acts 16:13
Here Paul went out preaching to women alongside a river on the Sabbath.
"Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures..." - Acts 17:1-2
As we have seen from these biblical passages, the apostles and disciples kept Saturday, the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath day and not Sunday as so many clergy believe today. Now lets go to those biblical passages they cite to justify their observance of Sunday as the Sabbath day.
"Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight." - Acts 20:7
Many clergy and followers of every denomination, use the above verse to point out that here it states plainly that the disciples had stopped keeping Saturday as the Sabbath day of the Lord and had adopted Sunday as the new Sabbath day. But what they fail to see or choose not to see, is that in the above verse Paul is simply stating that the disciples had come together not to worship, but to have a meal together. Nowhere in this verse do we find any reference to the observance of the Sabbath day.
"On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come." - 1 Corinthians 16:2
This is the other verse used by Sunday keepers to point out that the disciples had stopped keeping Saturday as the Sabbath day. Again what they fail to see or choose not to see is that, Paul as an observant Jew kept the Sabbath day this being Saturday and thus he did not want anything to interrupt his preaching, teaching or worshipping of God on Saturday, the Sabbath day. That is why here he instructs the rest of the disciples to do collections for others on the first day of the week, when it wasn't the Sabbath day.
So as you can see from the bible itself, God instituted the Sabbath day, this being Saturday, the seventh day of the week. He gave a special significance to this day and sanctified it. He blesses those who keep His Sabbath day, but states that those who do not keep it, are worthy of death. Jesus kept Saturday as the Sabbath day and so did His disciples even after His death and resurrection. The bible also tells us that the institution of the Sabbath is perpetual and is for all man, not just the Jews.