“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” -John 3:16-17

“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. -Romans 10:8-9

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” -Matthew 7:13-14

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” -John 14:5-6

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.” -Romans 13:1-2

As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
“Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;

“The poison of asps is under their lips”
“Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Destruction and misery are in their ways;
And the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.

For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. -Romans 3:10-26

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. -Hebrews 11:6

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. -Luke 11:9-10

We must realize that all the Bible is God’s Word and inspired by the Holy Spirit. Having said that we must realize that the Bible consists of two covenants, the Old and the New. The Old Covenant (Old Testament) includes, of course, the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible).

The New Covenant (New Testament) is “a better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6 KJV). The New Covenant is better for at least two reasons: The Old Covenant applied only to the Jews and no one could keep it because they did not have the power to do so, and if any of the Jews broke the Law at just one point they were guilty of breaking the whole Law (James 2:10 NIV). The New Covenant includes not only Jews if they repent of their sins and receive Jesus Christ (are born again), but Gentiles also.

Anyone who is born again (unlike unsaved Jews) has the grace (God-given desire and power) to obey all the commandments of the New Covenant (approximately 180). “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

God said in His Word, speaking of the Israelites after they left Egypt, “I gave them My sabbaths to be a sign between Me and them [the Israelites], that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness” (Ezekiel 20:12-13). God gave the sabbaths to Israel (the Jews), not Israel and the other nations.

Now, having said all the above, and knowing that it is the New Covenant by which we establish our practices and doctrines, where in the New Testament does it say that Christians should keep the Sabbath? Also, for those who want to keep the Sabbath, where does it say how to keep it? The only place in which the Bible contains instruction on how to observe the Sabbath is in the Law of the Old Covenant that was given to the Israelites only (Exodus 19:6; 35:1, 4).

Some Sabbatarians argue that God required everyone to observe the Sabbath when He created the earth. While it is true that Genesis 2:3 says, “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done,” this is the first mention of a type of the coming Sabbath (Jesus Christ) in whom we could find our rest. (God revealed this history to Moses when he wrote the Pentateuch two and a half millennia after the fact!)

It is not recorded anywhere in God’s Word that He imposed Sabbath-keeping on any holy men of God (or anyone else), nor how to keep the Sabbath before the Law of Moses was given about 1425 B.C., more than 2,500 years after Creation! Again, God never commanded anyone, including holy men of God, to keep nor did He give instructions concerning how to keep the Sabbath prior to the giving of the Mosaic Law, including Adam (who walked with God and enjoyed an intimate relationship with Him until The Fall), Noah, Enoch (who walked with God for 300 years before he was raptured), Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), Joseph (who became Prime Minister of the Egyptians who did not observe the Sabbath) and others. In fact, there is no mention whatsoever of the Sabbath day in all the history of the Book of Genesis covering the first 2,500 years after Creation, and the Jews heard nothing about the Sabbath until after the Exodus, as recorded in Exodus 16:23. These truths alone should be enough to stop the mouths of the deceived Sabbatarians who want to impose Sabbath-keeping on Christians and who do not even keep the Sabbath themselves.

Some of the commands concerning keeping the Sabbath are:

“Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out” (Exodus 16:29). How many Sabbatarians break the Sabbath every week by traveling, even to go “worship” God on the Sabbath?

“Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day” (Exodus 35:3). How many Sabbaterians break the Sabbath by lighting a fire in their houses on the Sabbath to cook or to keep warm, or just to sit in front of a cozy fireplace?

“Whoever does any work on it [the Sabbath] must be put to death” (Exodus 35:2). A man was found gathering wood on a Sabbath day. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.’ So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses” (Numbers 15:32-36). How many Sabbaterians obey God by the whole assembly taking a man out and stoning him to death for even gathering wood for a fire on the Sabbath?

We must compare scripture with scripture to arrive at truth and doctrine and practice under the new and better Covenant. Notwithstanding the fact that God, as recorded in Genesis by Moses after the days of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob (Israel), rested (ceased from His work) and blessed the seventh day and made it holy, it was a shadow or type of The Sabbath to come, which is Jesus Christ himself.

True Christians, whether born-again Jews or Gentiles, have entered the Sabbath Rest which is Jesus Christ. Jesus, himself, did not keep the Sabbath. On the Sabbath, “Jesus said to them [the Jews], ‘My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I, too, am working.’ For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:17-18). Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath” (John 9:16).

Jesus did not sin, by not keeping the Sabbath, because He was, and is, sinless. Indeed, Jesus is The Sabbath, in whom Christians (saved Jews and Gentiles) rest. All those who have not been born again, whether Jews or Gentiles, have not entered into The Sabbath rest.

Unsaved Jews are still under the Mosaic Law and are required to keep the Sabbath, as well as the rest of the Law, and if they break the Law at just one point, they are guilty of breaking the whole Law.

Speaking of the Sabbath given to the Israelites (Jews), the writer to the Hebrews said, “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God [born-again Jews and Gentiles]; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:8-10). Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Concerning the Sabbath, the Law says, “Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out” (Exodus 16:29), but the apostle Paul and those Christians with him went contrary to the Law as revealed in this one passage alone, “On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river…” (Acts 16:13). Paul and those Christians with him were not sinning by not keeping the Sabbath. The great apostle knew that Jesus had taught him by the Holy Spirit that the Old Covenant sabbaths were a shadow and type of the coming Messiah and Savior who is The Sabbath. It is only in Him that we can truly find rest for our souls that have been laden with sin.

There was a period of transition for a good number of years between Judaism under the Old Covenant and Christianity under the New. The Jews who repented of their sins and received Christ as their Savior and Sabbath Rest would not readily let go of their traditions, etc. But when the apostle Paul was raised up, the Lord taught Jews and Gentiles more things that were not revealed during Jesus’ earthly ministry. Paul said, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord…Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another…So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God” (Romans 14:5-6, 13, 22).

When the Jewish Christians saw that God was granting repentance to the Gentiles, the leaders did not know what to require of them. So they met and decided not to tell them to keep the Sabbath, but rather to “abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality” (Acts 15:12-29). This took place at the Council of Jerusalem in A.D. 50.

The early Christians met in houses on the Lord’s Day which is the first day of the week. The Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week, is still the Sabbath. The Sabbath has not been changed to the first day of the week, as some claim. The Roman Catholics did not institute worship on the Lord’s Day, contrary to their false claims. This is a deception not only taught by Roman Catholic theologians, but by others such as the Seventh Day Adventists (and similar cults). The Seventh Day Adventists and some other Sabbatarians are so deceived and so hung up on the Sabbath (which none really keep) that they go to the absurd extreme of claiming that worshipping on the Lord’s Day is taking the mark of the beast!

Much more could be said about the subject, but more than enough has been revealed for the Holy Spirit to confirm to those who have “ears to hear” that what has been presented here is, indeed, true.

Reprinted from this link.

I stood upon a hill one night
And watched the Great Creator write
His autograph in Lightning strokes
And there was I, a witness to this
Magnificent, Momentous, Divine event!

I stood one morning by a stream,
As day was waking like a dream;
The fields were fair as fields may be in spring,
A golden mystery of buttercups;
And God came on and wrote His autograph
in the Dawn!

One afternoon, long years ago, when glacial tides
had ebb and flow,
I found this cliff, God’s hand had smitten,
I scanned its face where God had written,
With some great glacier for a pen
His autograph for time and men!

One night I stood and watched the stars,
The milky way, and ranging Mars;
Where God in letters tipped with fire,
The story of His tall desire had writ in rhyme
and signed His name;
A stellar autograph in flame!

Creation’s dawn was deep in night,
When suddenly “Let there be light,”
Awakened grass and flowers and trees
The wind, the gales, the raging seas,

And to complete creation’s plan,
In His own image God made man;
And signed His name with strokes most sure,
Man is God’s greatest signature!

-William Steiger

I can’t fly in the design for an airplane. I can’t drive the design of a car. The design of a watch won’t tell me the time. Dear ID advocates, please tell us by what means the intelligent design of nature became implemented. I know how the design of a car gets translated into a car by means of industrial production processes. How does the design of nature get translated into actual nature? Remember, you’re trying (or at least some of you are) to present ID as a scientific idea.

Heresiarch

To Heresiarch:

Imagine that your perception of time was different and you could see a universe such as ours being formed in the blink of an eye; to your eye it would have simply materialized. The design could have been contained in the very substance of the matter that was formed, and there could have been a specific signature on each element of nature that was inherent to it’s purpose in the formation of the whole. The forces acting on each would appear much less random, but completely intentional. Whoever had signed those elements would therefore be the designer. You as an element of that design would be unaware of the design itself, as it had originated from outside of your universe, but to your naked eye, the signature would still be apparent.

Simply because you have the intelligence to reverse engineer something, as time was slowed down enough for you to comprehend it (mildly), doesn’t make you as intelligent as the original designer. Somehow through the increase in our understanding of the laws of the universe, we have made the false assumption that our having “discovered” them somehow negates the reality of the one who had first established them, as if the mere comprehension of the design somehow destroys the reality of it having been designed in the first place. Where our appreciation of the designer should be increasing as the beauty and elegance of the universe is revealed, we take the opposite prideful response which is to attempt to disregard the designer, as if we could have invented such a thing ourselves.

As much as the designer of the airplane “materializes” his or her design by forming and fashioning its parts from the forces and elements available, the airplane itself is seemingly unaware of its having been designed. Oddly enough many humans fall into a similar condition. As an aside, ask me if that same airplane would have materialized without a design and I would say it would be a highly unlikely event at best. Even if it were possible, I would attribute the event to the original designer of the universe within which it had been created. That designer being God.

-Me