Sabbath Seventh Day

The real truth about who changed the Sabbath

Introduction

The Book of Daniel informs us that a persecuting power would change God’s law and so the Seventh day Sabbath truth became the first day sabbath deception and against God’s will. The change to the fourth Commandment came about over several centuries and by the death and torture of millions. Yet many will tell you the Sabbath was changed to Sunday in honour of the resurrection and others say it was nailed to the cross. Others will say any day can be the Sabbath as long as you keep one. And still others will tell you as long as you do everything to the glory of God you don’t have to keep God’s true Sabbath. And yet still others will say it is legalism. Is this really what the Bible says? Does it strike you as strange that there are hundreds of different excuses to one of the Bible Ten Commandments and that they are always different? Shouldn't there be just one clear and valid reason if the Sabbath had changed? And especially when Jesus said that not one stroke of the pen would change from the law till Heaven and Earth pass. Is Heaven and Earth still here? Can we trust what Jesus and the Word of God tells us? Obviously we can and hence all the multitude of excuses are just that which history and all the facts support as you would expect. You will also find the Sabbath in the New Testament after the cross.

It leaves me feeling dumbfounded that some are so desperate to avoid this one Commandment that they say, “The Catholic Church say they changed the Sabbath but they didn't really.” There are many variations of such erroneous statements but they all have one thing in common. Excuse me for being direct but they are all foolishly deceived. Not only does the Catholic Church admit they completed the change but history confirms this is indeed truth. If you find anyone denying the truth, then know that they are also denying solid historical facts and thus are foolishly deceived or even intentionally lying. This is commonly due to hatred and prejudice against the largest Sabbath keeping Church by disgruntled ex-members. I am sure it is not necessary to explain what spirit is behind these attacks and why.

As the Papacy grew in power, it opposed the Seventh day Sabbath in favour of Sunday sacredness. All historical records show the Catholic Church made the day change official in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 363-364). Read did Constantine change the Sabbath to find what role he played. The Council of Laodicea around A.D. 364 decreed 59 Canon laws. Here is the final law instituted by the Papal Church.

Canon XXIX:Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.” (Percival Translation).

What would you do if God personally spoke to you and said that He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for you and He desires to spend quality time with you on a specific day that He blessed and sanctified, how would you respond to Him? Would you say, “sorry God, that day is not convenient for me” or “no God, I can’t spend that time with you on your Holy day, that’s legalism” or even, “surely it does not matter which day God, how about Sunday. I know it is a day that Satan first instituted using sun worship but I am busy very busy on the other days of the week.” Is this what we would really say? Why is it so hard for us to rest in Jesus on His Holy day?

Christians that know the Sabbath truth say it is a blessing and their favourite day of the week. The Sabbath is quality time with family and relaxing and fellow shipping with God and other Christians. Why are there people in the world so determined to take this blessing from those who keep the Sabbath properly and in the way Jesus intended? If those who condemn Christians who choose to be obedient to God and convince others they don't have to spend this quality time with God are indeed wrong, they are in very serious trouble. If those that enjoy keeping the Sabbath and do so are have it wrong, God will have no punishment what so ever as they just wanted to obey Him in love. What better way is there to get to know our Creator than to spend Holy time with Him? Isn't this how love relationships grow? Why do so many people try so hard to justify why we don’t have to spend this precious quality time with God on His Holy day that He has given us? The Sabbath should be our favourite day of the week and it is for those who keep it according to the Bible. God says we are to find this day a delight and a blessing.

Isaiah 58:13-14 “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 of the LORD, honourable; and shall honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shall you delight thyself in the LORD...”

It appears that everyone has a different idea about the Sabbath. When there is so much confusion and conflicting information you know that Satan has been hard at work and one needs to investigate and find the real truth.

Would it surprise you to know that Jesus never once even mentioned the first day of the week? As Christians, we must always seek after the truth, as Jesus and the Word are truth. If we really love Jesus with all our heart, might and soul, we will always strive to find what the truth is at any cost.Catholic Church changed the Sabbath

The contents of this web site is to simply demonstrate the truth about who changed the Sabbath to Sunday and to show that amazingly, besides the five hundred plus different denominations of Sabbath keeping Churches that know the Sabbath truth, only the Roman Catholic Church are aware that Saturday is still the true Sabbath and should be kept by those who choose to follow the Bible alone. Why are they the only Sunday keeping Church that knows the truth and acknowledges it? Please read Sabbath Day change or Gods Sabbath Truth if you would like to learn more about the Sabbath. You may also like to read some thought provoking questions with eye opening quotes that show you how the Sabbath relates to Bible Prophecy.

It would be highly beneficial to first read the History of SunDay Worship for very enlightening information on how Sunday worship actually began 2000 years before Christ and was Satan worship or for even more detailed information on how the Sabbath was changed to Sunday, which includes the origins of 666 and the information from the above link, please read who changed the Sabbath to Sunday and is the Sabbath Saturday or Sunday.

Sabbath Statements by the Catholic Church

 Comment  “Is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But 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.” James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (1917 edition), p. 72-73 (16th Edition, p 111; 88th Edition, p. 89).

 Comment  “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 [Roman Catholic] church outside the Bible.” Catholic Virginian, October 3, 1947, p. 9, article “To Tell You the Truth.”

 Comment  “Most Christians assume that Sunday is the biblically approved day of worship. The Catholic Church protests that it transferred Christian worship from the biblical Sabbath (Saturday) to Sunday, and that to try to argue that the change was made in the Bible is both dishonest and a denial of Catholic authority. If Protestantism wants to base its teachings only on the Bible, it should worship on Saturday.” Rome’s Challenge www.immaculateheart.com/maryonline Dec 2003.

Who Made Sunday Holy?

 Comment  “Question: How prove you that the church had 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.”

 Comment  “Question: Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?”
“Answer: Had she not such power, she could not a 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 of the week, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.” Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism On the Obedience Due to the Church, 3rd edition, Chapter 2, p. 174 (Imprimatur, John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York).

 Comment  “Question - Which is the Sabbath day?”
“Answer - Saturday is the Sabbath day.”
“Question - Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?”
“Answer - We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50, 3rd edition, 1957.

 Comment  “Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday...Now the Church...instituted, by God’s authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday.” Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About, 1927 edition, p. 136.

 Comment  “Written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, this Divine code (ten commandments) was received from the Almighty by Moses amid the thunders of Mount Sinai...Christ resumed these Commandments in the double precept of charity--love of God and of the neighbour; He proclaimed them as binding under the New Law in Matthew 19 and in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5)...The (Catholic) 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...He (God) claims one day out of the seven as a memorial to Himself, and this must be kept holy...” The Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol. 4, “The Ten Commandments”, 1908 edition by Robert Appleton Company; and 1999 Online edition by Kevin Knight, Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

 Comment  “Question. What warrant have you for keeping Sunday preferably to the ancient sabbath which was Saturday?
“Answer. We have for it the authority of the Catholic church and apostolic tradition.”

 Comment  “Question. Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath?”
“Answer. The Scripture commands us to hear the church (St.Matt.18:17; St. Luke 10:16), and to hold fast the traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess 2:15. But the Scripture does not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath.”

 Comment  “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’ was chosen, not from any direction noted in the Scriptures, but from the (Catholic) Church’s sense of its own power...People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy.” St. Catherine Church Sentinel, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995.

 Comment  “Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the seventh day - Saturday - for Sunday, the first day? I answer yes. Did Christ change the day'? I answer no!
“Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons.” James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Md. (1877-1921), in a signed letter.

 Comment  “Question. - How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?”
“Answer. - By the very act of changing 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.”

 Comment  “Question. - How prove you that?”
“Answer. - Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the Church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin: and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.” An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, composed by Henry Tuberville, p. 58.”

 Comment  “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 the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now 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 (Roman Catholic) Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days.” John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, 1936 edition, vol. 1, p. 51.

 Comment  “The Catholic church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday...The Protestant World at its birth found the Christian Sabbath too strongly entrenched to run counter to its existence; it was therefore placed under the necessity of acquiescing in the arrangement, thus implying the (Catholic) Church’s right to change the day, for over three hundred years. The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day, the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church as spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant World.” James Cardinal Gibbons in the Catholic Mirror, September 23, 1983.

 Comment  “Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the (Roman catholic) Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath.” John Gilmary Shea, American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883.

 Comment  “St John speaks of the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10) but he does not tell us what day of the week that was, much less does he tell us what day was to take the place of the Sabbath ordained in the commandments. St.Luke speaks of the disciples meeting together to break bread on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7. And St. Paul (1 Cor.16:2) orders that on the first day of the week the Corinthians should lay in store what they designated to bestow in charity on the faithful in Judea: but neither the one or the other tells us that this first day of the week was to be henceforth a day of worship, and the Christian Sabbath; so that truly the best authority we have for this ancient custom is the testimony of the church. And therefore those who pretend to be such religious observers of Sunday, whilst they take no notice of other festivals ordained by the same church authority, show that they act more by humor, than by religion; since Sundays and holidays all stand upon the same foundation, namely the ordinance of the (Roman Catholic) church.” Catholic Christian Instructed, 17th edition, p. 272-273.

Whose Day of Worship is Sunday?

 Comment  “Sunday is a Catholic institution and its claim to observance 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, Sydney, Australia, August 1900.

 Comment  “They [the Protestants] deem it their duty to keep the Sunday holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so. They have no other reason...The observance of Sunday thus comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the divine law of Sabbath observance...The author of the Sunday law...is the Catholic Church.” Ecclesiastical Review, February 1914.

 Comment  “The Sunday...is purely a creation of the Catholic Church.” American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883.

 Comment  “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 News, Elizabeth, New Jersey, March 18, 1903.

 Comment  “Sunday...is the law of the Catholic Church alone...” American Sentinel (Catholic), June 1893.

Who do we Reverence Keeping Sunday Holy?

 Comment  “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 the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church, the Pope.” Our Sunday Visitor, February 15, 1950.

 Comment  “Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change (Saturday Sabbath to Sunday) was her act...And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things.” H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons.

 Comment  “It was the Catholic church which...has transferred this rest to Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Therefore the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an 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.

 Comment  “Sunday is our mark or authority...the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.” Catholic Record of London, Ontario, September 1, 1923.

 Comment  “From this we may understand how great is the authority of the church in interpreting or explaining to us the commandments of God - an authority which is acknowledged by the universal practice of the whole Christian world, even of those sects which profess to take the holy Scriptures as their sole rule of faith, since they observe as the day of rest not the seventh day of the week demanded by the Bible, but the first day. Which we know is to be kept holy, only from the tradition and teaching of the Catholic church.” Henry Gibson, Catechism Made Easy, # 2, 9th edition, vol. 1, p. 341-342.

The Sabbath Truth Conclusion and Challenge

 Comment  “1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.

 Comment  “2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws...

 Comment  “It is always somewhat laughable, to see the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of Sunday, of which there is nothing in their Bible.” Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic Church Extension Magazine, USA (1975), Chicago, Illinois, “Under the blessing of the Pope Pius XI”

 Comment  “The arguments...are firmly grounded on the word of God, and having been closely studied with the Bible in hand, leave no escape for the conscientious Protestant except the abandonment of Sunday worship and the return to Saturday, commanded by their teacher, the Bible, or, unwilling to abandon the tradition of the Catholic Church, which enjoins the keeping of Sunday, and which they have accepted in direct opposition to their teacher, the Bible, consistently accept her (the Catholic Church) in all her teachings. Reason and common sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicism and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible.” James Cardinal Gibbons, in Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893.

 Comment  “Sunday is founded, not of scripture, but on tradition, and is distinctly a Catholic institution. As there is no scripture for the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday and thus leave Catholics in full possession of Sunday.” Catholic Record, September 17, 1893.

 Comment  “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.” The Catholic Universe Bulletin, August 14, 1942, p. 4.

 Comment  “Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts:

“I am going to propose a very plain and serious question to those who follow ‘the Bible and the Bible only’ to give their most earnest attention. It is this: Why don’t you keep holy the Sabbath day?...

“The command of the Almighty God stands clearly written in the Bible in these words: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.’ Exodus 20:8-10...

“You will answer me, perhaps, that you do keep the Sabbath; for that you abstain from all worldly business and diligently go to church, and say your prayers, and read your Bible at home every Sunday of your lives...

“But Sunday is not the Sabbath day. Sunday is the first day of the week: the Sabbath day is the seventh day of the week. Almighty God did not give a commandment that men should keep holy one day in seven; but He named His own day, and said distinctly: ‘Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day’; and He assigned a reason for choosing this day rather than any other - a reason which belongs only to the seventh day of the week, and cannot be applied to the rest. He says, ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it’, Exodus 20:11, Genesis 2:1-3. Almighty God ordered that all men should rest from their labor on the seventh day, because He too had rested on that day: He did not rest on Sunday, but on Saturday. On Sunday, which is the first day of the week, He began the work of creation; He did not finish it. It was on Saturday that He ‘ended His work which he had made: 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.’ Genesis 2:2-3...

“Nothing can be more plain and easy to understand than all this; there is nobody who attempts to deny it. It is acknowledged by everybody that the day which Almighty God appointed to be kept holy was Saturday, not Sunday. Why do you then keep holy the Sunday and not Saturday?

“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 the 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 answer...

“You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet, in so important a manner as the observance of one day in seven as the 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.” Excerpts from “Why Don’t You Keep Holy the Sabbath Day?”, pages 3-15 in The Clifton Tract, vol. 4, published by the Roman Catholic Church 1869.

Conclusion

The Sabbath day truth is easy to see for those that love God enough to make any sacrifice to spend quality Holy time with their Creator. Spending this precious time with our Lord has made our relationship grow much stronger and the blessings are beyond description. Do you desire the same in your own life or are other priorities robbing you of these many blessings? See also what is the mark from the beast to discover the mark of the Catholic Church and the number of the beast 666 and origin to find how this number relates to the Catholic Church and paganism.

Watch Bible Prophecy Seminars online

If you would like to watch an online Prophecy Seminar that reveals who the little horn of Daniel 7 and the Beast of Revelation 13 is that changed the Sabbath to Sunday, you will find Revelation Reveals the Antichrist excellent. You may want to start about 17.5 minutes in to bypass singing items etc. You can also watch Histories Greatest Hoax for the real Sabbath truth from scripture and ideally should be watched first. To watch more from this and other Prophecy Seminars you will find the menus here. Be prepared to discover many mind blowing, lost Bible truths.