Why God Said Remember - manna.amazingfacts.org...Why God Said Remember 9 Why God Said Remember 8 these hellish attempts to discredit God’s authority has produced a bitter success

Why God Said Remember 9/2/03 8:07 PM Page i

1. What Could He Do? ....................... 22. Creation – The Mark of God’s

Sovereignty .................................. 33. Conversion – Creative Power

at Work ........................................ 54. The Battle Over Authority ............... 75. The Test Point of the Law ................ 96. Major Fallacy #1 - The Sabbath Was

Made Only for the Jews ............... 127. Major Fallacy #2 – Just Keep Any

Day in the Seven ......................... 178. Major Fallacy #3 – We Can’t Locate

the True Seventh Day ................... 219. Major Fallacy #4 – The Sabbath Was

Only a Memorial of DeliveranceOut of Egypt ............................... 27

10. Major Fallacy #5 – Keep Sunday inHonor of the Resurrection ........... 29

Copyright © 2003 byLu Ann Crews

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Why God Said Remember 9/2/03 8:07 PM Page ii

Why God Said Remember2

of creation. That power to speak heaven andearth into existence would distinguish Himfrom all the counterfeit gods and theirdeceptive claims. What could He do thatwould constantly point mankind back to thefocal week of creation when He foreverestablished His divine authority?

C H A P T E R 2Creation – The Mark of God’s Sovereignty

God chose to memorialize thatconvincing display of creative powerby setting aside the seventh day of

creation week as a holy day of rest andremembering. It would constitute atremendous safeguard of God’s sovereignty—amark of His right to rule as the only trueGod. It would, at the same time, stand as adevastating debunking of every god who hadnot created the heavens and earth.

The writings of Old Testament prophetsare saturated with reminders of God’s peculiarpowers of creation. David wrote, “For all thegods of the nations are idols: but the LORD

Why God Said Remember 3

C H A P T E R 1What Could He Do?

Numerous surveys and questionnaireshave confirmed that the mostpopular form of modem skepticism

is to deny the creation story. Seventy-twopercent of ministers interviewed expressedvarying degrees of doubt that God actuallyspoke the world into existence according tothe biblical account. This fundamentaldisbelief has led to the rejection of otherfoundational doctrines of Christendom suchas the virgin birth and the atonement.

It is interesting to note that God apparentlyanticipated a lot of controversy over theGenesis record of fiat creation. His claims ofmanufacturing all the staggering mass of matterby merely commanding it to exist—well, therewould certainly be doubters and disbelievers ofsuch an account. And even those who readabout it and believed it would soon forget themiraculous fact under the confusing influenceof a million false gods who would arise.

So God needed to do something unusualto preserve the knowledge of His mighty act

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rotated on its axis, the Sabbath reminderwould travel around the earth reaching everyman, woman, and child with the message of aninstant creation.Why did God say remember?Because to forget the Sabbath is to forget theCreator also.

C H A P T E R 3Conversion – Creative

Power at Work

Parallel to the accounts of a physicalcreation we find the record of God’spower to recreate the human heart.

Evidently, the two processes stem from thesame omnipotent source. It requires just asmuch power to effect conversion or recreationas to call something into existence by creation.Said the apostle,“Put on the new man, whichafter God is created in righteousness and trueholiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Since the newbirth is the most basic identifying mark of thejustified believer, it is no wonder that the Biblewriters constantly remind us of the creativepower that distinguishes the true God from allcounterfeits.

Why God Said Remember 5Why God Said Remember4

made the heavens” (Psalm 96:5). Jeremiahexpressed it: “But the LORD is the true God,he is the living God. . . .The gods that have notmade the heavens and the earth, even theyshall perish. . . . He hath made the earth by hispower” (Jeremiah 10:10-12).

Did God Himself demonstrate an extremeurgency in keeping the truth of creationvividly before the eyes of the world? Yes. Tosuch a degree that He wrote into the heart ofHis great moral law the binding obligation ofevery living soul to keep the Sabbath holy, andthus, to acknowledge His divine authority.Within those eternal principles forming thefoundation of His government and reflectingHis own perfect character, God wrote thesewords:“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep itholy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thywork: But the seventh day is the sabbath of theLORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do anywork. . . . For in six days the LORD madeheaven and earth, the sea, and all that in themis . . . wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbathday, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-12).

What an act to highlight the omnipotentwork of creation! Once a week, as the earth


Satan actually wanted to be worshiped. Toaccomplish this, he had to nullify God’s claimas the rightful ruler. God’s authority rested onHis claim to be the Creator, and the Sabbathwas the mark of that authority. By destroyingthe Sabbath, Satan would prepare the way toset up a counterfeit government based oncounterfeit claims of authority symbolized bya counterfeit day of worship.

C H A P T E R 4The Battle Over Authority

It is fascinating to look back over the agesand see the outworking of the greatcontroversy between Christ and Satan.

The contest has always focused upon the issueof authority.

The strategy of the evil one has been atwo-pronged attack on God’s claim to be theCreator. First, by the theory of evolution withits humanistic doctrine of natural selection.Second, by an age-long effort to destroy theobservance of the seventh-day Sabbath, themark of creative power.

We can only say in passing that each of


Pointing beyond the mere fact of aphysical creation, God spoke these words also,“Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to bea sign between me and them, that they mightknow that I am the LORD that sanctify them”(Ezekiel 20:12).

Please note that a sanctified Sabbath wasto be the mark of a sanctified people. Theword, “sanctify,” meaning to set aside for aholy use (a day which spoke of God’s creativepower), served also as a reminder that Godcould set people apart for a holy use throughregeneration or recreation.

In the light of these facts, it is easy tounderstand why the devil has waged acontinuing, desperate battle against theseventh-day Sabbath. For almost sixmillenniums he has worked through pride oftradition, misinformation, and religiousbigotry to destroy the sanctity of God’s specialsign of authority—the Sabbath.

As a mark of God’s right to rule, theSabbath challenged Satan’s boast that he wouldtake God’s place. Said the adversary, “I willexalt my throne above the stars of God. . . . Iwill be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:13, 14).



Obedience is the highest form ofallegiance and worship. If Satan could createan issue that would cause people to disobeyGod, he had an even chance of winning theirobedience to his cause. The decisive contestwould take place over the law of God. Itconstituted the foundation of God’sgovernment. How could Satan destroyconfidence in the law and make people obeyhim instead? And which commandmentshould he attack? Obviously, the one thatpointed to God’s creative power and His rightto rule. As the identifying sign of the trueGod, the Sabbath has always been an object ofsatanic hate. God had chosen the Sabbath as atest of loyalty to His law in the Old Testament:“That I may prove them,” said the Lord,“whether they will walk in my law, or no”(Exodus 16:4).

C H A P T E R 5The Test Point of the Law

Since God had made the Sabbath the testpoint of all the Ten Commandments,Satan determined to make it the giant

Why God Said Remember 9Why God Said Remember8

these hellish attempts to discredit God’sauthority has produced a bitter successbeyond all expectation. Millions have beenturned into religious skeptics and agnosticsbecause of Darwin’s doctrine of organicevolution. Denying any fall of man thatwould require a Savior from sin, evolutionstruck at the plan of redemption as well as thefact of creation.

In a similar vein, Satan’s attacks on theSabbath have led millions to disobey the onecommandment in the Decalogue that Godhad made the specific test of obedience to theentire law.

A successful plan to subvert the loyalty ofmillions who were devoted to the true Godrequired a masterpiece of satanic strategy. Itwould take time. It would involve centuries ofdeceptive mind-bending. There would be nodramatic turn from serving God to servingSatan.The secret would be to win obediencethrough religious subterfuge. Satan understoodthe principle of Romans 6:16 long before Paulever penned the words,“Know ye not, that towhom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, hisservants ye are to whom ye obey?”


to displace the true Sabbath of the Bible.Unfortunately, prejudices and false

information have led thousands of Christiansto close their eyes to the overwhelminghistorical evidences of this substitution. Theroots of their prejudice are not hard toidentify. Satan has worked too long on hisopposition system to allow it to be rejectedeasily. Through the ages he has perfected aseries of subtle false arguments to bolsterobedience to his counterfeit day of worship.He still hates the Sabbath that identifies thetrue God.

Only as we expose these attacks on theseventh-day Sabbath are we able tounderstand why millions continue to observethe first day of the week, a day for which thereis not one supporting Bible text. No onedisagrees with the meaning of God’shandwritten law, “The seventh day is theSabbath of the LORD . . . in it thou shalt notdo any work.” Yet millions do not obey it. Noone can refute the overwhelming evidence ofSunday’s pagan origin, yet millions keep itinstead of the plainly commanded Sabbath ofthe Ten Commandments. Why? I repeat, the


issue of the ages. By destroying the Sabbath,Satan would be prepared to launch his super-plan to claim obedience to a counterfeit dayof worship. Manipulating the weakness of acompromised Christianity that had slowlyacceded to pagan influences, Satan set up hismasterpiece—a worldwide church-state—thatwould ruthlessly enforce compliance with hiscounterfeit system of worship.

For over a thousand years, beginning withthe so-called conversion of the paganEmperor Constantine, the dark history ofapostasy unfolded. Almost the first act of thenewly-professed Christian emperor was tomake a law against Sabbath-keeping and toinstitute other laws requiring rest on the firstday of the week, a wild solar holiday dedicatedto pagan sun worship.

We will not dwell, at present, upon thewell-documented history of the papal churchcouncils that enforced the observance of thepagan Sunday on pain of death.The facts arewell-known to those who have been willingto search the records with an open mind.During the fourth and fifth centuries, the firstday of the week was exalted by papal decree




reason is rooted in the clever arguments ofSatan that have created a climate of prejudiceagainst the holy Sabbath of the Lord.We shallnow examine some major fallacies of thosearguments.

C H A P T E R 6Major Fallacy #1 – The Sabbath Was

Made Only for the Jews

This falsehood has gained such strengththat multitudes of Christians call thisthe “Jewish Sabbath.” But nowhere do

we find such an expression in the Bible. It iscalled “the sabbath of the LORD,” but never“the sabbath of the Jew.” (Exodus 20:10). Lukewas a Gentile writer of the New Testamentand often referred to things that werepeculiarly Jewish. He spoke of the “nation ofthe Jews,” “the people of the Jews,” “the landof the Jews,” and the “synagogue of the Jews”(Acts 10:22; 12:11; 10:39; 14:1). But pleasenote that Luke never referred to the “sabbathof the Jews,” although he mentioned theSabbath repeatedly.

Christ clearly taught that “the sabbath was


made for man” (Mark 2:27). The fact is thatAdam was the only man in existence at thetime God made the Sabbath. There were noJews in the world for at least 2,000 years aftercreation. It could never have been made forthem. Jesus used the term “man” in thegeneric sense, referring to mankind.The sameword is used in connection with theinstitution of marriage that was alsointroduced at creation. Woman was made forman just as the Sabbath was made for man.Certainly no one believes that marriage wasmade only for the Jews.

The fact is that two beautiful, originalinstitutions were set up by God Himselfbefore sin ever came into the world—marriage and the Sabbath. Both were madefor man, both received the special blessing ofthe Creator and both continue to be just asholy now as when they were sanctified in theGarden of Eden.

It is also interesting to note that Jesus wasthe One who made the Sabbath in the firstweek of time.There was a reason for His claimto be Lord of the Sabbath day (Mark 2:28). IfHe is the Lord of the Sabbath day, then the


Sabbath must be the Lord’s day. John had avision on “the Lord’s day,” according toRevelation 1:10. That day had to be theSabbath. It is the only day so designated andclaimed by God in the Bible. In writing theTen Commandments, God called it “thesabbath of the LORD” (Exodus 20:10). InIsaiah He is quoted as saying, “The sabbath,my holy day” (Isaiah 58:13).

But we must not overlook the fact thatthis God who created the world and made theSabbath was Jesus Christ Himself. John wrote:“In the beginning was the Word, and the Wordwas with God, and the Word was God. Thesame was in the beginning with God. Allthings were made by him; and without himwas not any thing made that was made. . . .And the Word was made flesh, and dweltamong us, (and we beheld his glory, the gloryas of the only begotten of the Father,) full ofgrace and truth”( John 1:1-3, 14).

Paul clearly identified Jesus as the Creator,“. . . his dear Son: In whom we haveredemption through his blood. . . . For by himwere all things created” (Colossians 1:13-16).

For Christians to separate Jesus from the


Sabbath is a tragic mistake. For He is theAuthor, the Maker, the Sanctifier, and theArchitect of the Sabbath. To discount theblessing that He placed on that day is to denyHis authority.

This argument has led many to believethat the Sabbath existed only for a limitedperiod of time following creation. But is this afact? Actually, the Sabbath could never be justa type or shadow of anything, for the simplereason that it was made before sin entered thehuman family. Certain shadows and typicalobservances were instituted as a result of sinand pointed forward to the deliverance fromsin. Such were the sacrifices employed tosymbolize the death of Jesus, the Lamb ofGod. There would have been no animalsacrifices had there been no sin. Theseofferings were abolished when Christ died onthe cross, because the types had met theirfulfillment (Matthew 27:51). But no shadowexisted before sin entered this world;therefore, the Sabbath could not be includedin the ceremonial law of types and shadows.

Paul referred to the temporary system ofordinances in Colossians 2:14-16 as being



Commandment law had been hallowed beforesin was introduced and was later incorporatedinto the great moral law written by the fingerof God. It was eternal in its very nature.

C H A P T E R 7Major Fallacy #2 – Just Keep Any

Day in the Seven

By this argument Satan prepared theworld to accept a substitute for theSabbath God had commanded. Upon

the tables of stone God wrote the great,unchanging law of the ages. Every word wasserious and meaningful. Not one line wasambiguous or mysterious. Sinners andChristians, educated and uneducated, have noproblem understanding the simple, clear wordsof the Ten Commandments. God meant whatHe said and He said what He meant. No onehas tried to void that law as too complicatedto comprehend.

Most of the ten begin with the samewords:‘‘Thou shalt not,’’ but right in the heartof the law we find the fourth commandmentthat is introduced with the word,


“against us” and “contrary to us.” He tied it tothe meat offerings, drink offerings, and yearlyfestivals of the law that was “blotted out.” It istrue he referred to sabbaths also in the text,but take careful note that he called them“sabbath days which are a shadow of things tocome.” Were some sabbath days blotted out atthe cross? Yes, there were at least four yearlysabbaths that came on certain set days of themonth, and they were nailed to the cross.Theywere shadows and required specified meat anddrink offerings. These annual sabbaths aredescribed in Leviticus 23:24-36, and thensummarized in verses 37 and 38: “These arethe feasts of the LORD, which ye shallproclaim to be holy convocations, to offer anoffering made by fire unto the LORD, a burntoffering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, anddrink offerings, every thing upon his day:beside the sabbaths of the LORD.”

The Scripture plainly differentiatesbetween the annual, shadowy sabbaths and the weekly “sabbaths of the Lord.” Theceremonial sabbaths were blotted out at thecross; they had been added as a consequenceof sin. But the Sabbath of the Ten-



memorial be changed? Never. Because itpoints backward to an accomplished fact.July 4 is Independence Day. Can it bechanged? No. Because the Declaration ofIndependence was signed on July 4, 1776.Your birthday cannot be changed, either. It isa memorial of your birth, which happened ona set day. History would have to run throughagain to change your birthday, to changeIndependence Day, or to change the Sabbathday. We can call another day IndependenceDay, and we can call another day the Sabbath,but that does not make it so.

Did God ever give man the privilege ofchoosing his own day of rest? He did not. Infact, God confirmed in the Bible that theSabbath was settled and sealed by His owndivine selection and should not be tamperedwith. Read Exodus 16 concerning the givingof manna. For 40 years God worked threemiracles every week to show Israel which daywas holy. (1) No manna fell on the seventhday. (2) They could not keep it overnightwithout spoilage, but (3) when they kept itover the Sabbath, it remained sweet and fresh.

But some Israelites had the same idea


“Remember.” Why is this one different?Because God was commanding them to callsomething to memory that already existed buthad been forgotten. Genesis describes theorigin of the Sabbath in these words, “Thusthe heavens and the earth were finished, andall the host of them. And on the seventh dayGod ended his work which he had made. . . .And God blessed the seventh day, andsanctified it: because that in it he had restedfrom all his work which God created andmade” (Genesis 2:1-3).

Which day did God bless and sanctify?The seventh day. How was it to be kept holy?By resting. Could any of the other six be keptholy? No. Why? Because God commandednot to rest those days but to work. Does God’sblessing make a difference? Of course.This iswhy parents pray for God to bless theirchildren. They believe it makes a difference.The seventh day is different from all the othersix days, because it has God’s blessing.

Some more questions:Why did God blessthe day? Because He had created the world insix days. It was the birthday of the world, amemorial of a mighty act. Can the Sabbath



Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery,yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressorof the law” (James 2:10, 11).

C H A P T E R 8Major Fallacy #3 – We Can’t Locate

the True Seventh Day

This is a fallacy that has comfortedmany in their disobedience of thefourth commandment. It just is not

true. Here are four positive proofs whichidentify the true Sabbath today:

1. According to the Scriptures, Christ diedon Friday and rose on Sunday, the first dayof the week.

Practically all churches acknowledge thisfact by observing Easter Sunday and GoodFriday. Here is the Bible evidence:“This manwent unto Pilate, and begged the body ofJesus.And he took it down, and wrapped it inlinen, and laid it in a sepulcher that was hewnin stone, wherein never man before was laid.And that day was the preparation, and the


as many modern Christians. They felt that any day in seven would be all right to keepholy: “And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And theLORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye tokeep my commandments and my laws?”(Exodus 16:27, 28).

Get the picture? These people thoughtanother day could be kept just as well as theseventh day. Perhaps they were planning toobserve the first day of the week, or someother day which was more convenient. Whathappened? God met them and accused themof breaking His law by going forth to work onthe seventh day.Would God say the same thingto those who break the Sabbath today? Yes. Heis the same yesterday, today and forever—Hechanges not. God made it very clear that,regardless of their feelings, those who go forthto work on the Sabbath are guilty of breakingHis law. James explains that it is a sin to breakeven one of the Ten Commandments: “Forwhosoever shall keep the whole law, and yetoffend in one point, he is guilty of all. For hethat said, Do not commit adultery, said also,



commandment.” That was Saturday. Then onSunday, the first day of the week, EasterSunday to many, Jesus arose from the grave.

Anyone who can locate Good Friday orEaster Sunday will have absolutely nodifficulty finding the true Sabbath.

2. The calendar has not been changed so asto confuse the days of the week.

We can be positive that our seventh day isthe same day Jesus observed when He washere. Pope Gregory XIII did make a calendarchange in 1582, but it did not interfere withthe weekly cycle. Our present Gregoriancalendar was named after him when he madethat small change in 1582.

What did Pope Gregory do to thecalendar? Before 1582 the Julian calendar hadbeen in effect, instituted by Julius Caesar about46 B.C. and named after him. But the Juliancalendar had calculated the length of the yearas 365 1/4 days, and the year is actually elevenminutes less than 365 1/4 days. Those elevenminutes accumulated, and by 1582 thenumbering of the calendar was ten days out of


sabbath drew on” (Luke 23:52-54).Here is proof that Jesus died the day before

the Sabbath. It was called “the preparation day”because it was the time to get ready for theSabbath. Let us read the next verses:“And thewomen also, which came with him fromGalilee, followed after, and beheld thesepulcher, and how his body was laid.And theyreturned, and prepared spices and ointments;and rested the sabbath day according to thecommandment” (Verses 55, 56).

Please notice that the women rested overthe Sabbath “according to the commandment.”The commandment says, “The seventh day isthe Sabbath,” so we know they were observingSaturday. But the very next verse says, “Nowupon the first day of the week, very early in themorning, they came unto the sepulcher,bringing the spices which they had prepared.. . .And they found the stone rolled away fromthe sepulcher” (Luke 24:1, 2).

How clearly these three consecutive daysare described for us. He died Friday, thepreparation day, commonly called GoodFriday. He rested in the tomb on the seventhday, Sabbath, “according to the



or no calendar, for thousands of years. Couldthey have lost track?

Impossible.The only way they could havelost a day would have been for the entirenation to have slept over an extra 24 hoursand for no one ever to tell them about itafterwards.

There has been no change or loss of theSabbath since God made it in Genesis. Theorigin of the week is found in the creationstory. There is no scientific or astronomicalreason for measuring time in cycles of sevendays. It is an arbitrary arrangement of God andhas been miraculously preserved for onereason—because the holy Sabbath day pointsto the creative power of the only true God. Itis a sign of His sovereignty over the world andover human life; a sign of creation andredemption.

Is this not the reason God will preserveSabbath-keeping throughout eternity? Weread in Isaiah 66:22, 23: “For as the newheavens and the new earth, which I will make,shall remain before me, saith the LORD, soshall your seed and your name remain.And itshall come to pass, that from one new moon


harmony with the solar system. Gregorysimply dropped those ten days out of thenumbering of the calendar. It was Thursday,October 4, 1582, and the next day, Friday,should have been October 5. But Gregorymade it October 15 instead, dropping exactlyten days to bring the calendar back intoharmony with the heavenly bodies.

Were the days of the week confused? No.Friday still followed Thursday, and Saturdaystill followed Friday. The same seventh dayremained, and the weekly cycle was notdisturbed in the least. When we keep theseventh day on Saturday, we are observing thesame day Jesus kept, and He did it every weekaccording to Luke 4:16.

3. The third evidence for the true Sabbathis the most conclusive of all. The Jewishpeople have been observing the seventhday from the time of Abraham, and theystill keep it today.

Here is a whole nation—millions ofindividuals—who have been counting offtime meticulously, week after week, calendar




C H A P T E R 9Major Fallacy #4 – The Sabbath

Was Only a Memorial of Deliverance Out of Egypt

This strange idea is drawn from a singletext in the Old Testament and isdistorted to contradict many clear

statements about the true origin of theSabbath. The text is found in Deuteronomy5:14, 15:“But the seventh day is the sabbath ofthe Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do anywork, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, northy manservant, nor thy maidservant, northine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle,nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; thatthy manservant and thy maidservant may restas well as thou.And remember that thou wasta servant in the land of Egypt, and that theLORD thy God brought thee out thencethrough a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy Godcommanded thee to keep the sabbath day.”

Some people draw from this text that Godgave the Sabbath as a memorial of the Exodusfrom Egypt. But the Genesis story of the

to another, and from one sabbath to another,shall all flesh come to worship before me, saiththe Lord.”

The Sabbath is so precious to God thatHe will have His people observe itthroughout all time to come in the beautifulnew earth. If it is so precious to Him, shouldit not be precious to us? If we are going tokeep it then, should we not keep it now?

In an age of false gods, of atheisticevolution, and traditions of men, the worldneeds the Sabbath more than ever as a test ofour loyalty to the great Creator-God and asign of our sanctification through His power.

4. Proof number four lies in the fact thatover one hundred languages of the earthuse the word “Sabbath” for Saturday.

For example, the Spanish word forSaturday is “Sabado,” meaning Sabbath. Whatdoes this prove? It proves that when thosehundred languages originated in the long,long ago, Saturday was recognized as theSabbath day and was incorporated into thevery name of the day.



Neither the command to be just nor tokeep the Sabbath was given to memorialize theExodus, but God told them that His goodnessin bringing them out of captivity constituted astrong additional reason for their dealingkindly with their servants on the Sabbath andtreating justly the strangers and widows.

In the same way, God spoke to them inLeviticus 11:45, “For I am the LORD thatbringeth you up out of the land of Egypt . . .ye shall therefore be holy.” Surely no onewould insist that holiness did not exist beforethe Exodus, or that it would be everafterwards limited only to the Jews, tomemorialize their deliverance.

C H A P T E R 10Major Fallacy #5 – Keep Sunday in

Honor of the Resurrection

It is true that Jesus rose on the first day ofthe week, but nowhere is there theslightest intimation in the Bible for

anyone to keep that day holy. The basis forSabbath-keeping is the direct handwrittencommand of God.


making of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3) and thewording of the fourth commandment by GodHimself (Exodus 20:11) reveals the Sabbath asa memorial of creation.

The key to understanding these two versesrests in the word “servant.” God said,“Remember that thou wast a servant in theland of Egypt.”And in the sentence before thisone He reminds them “that thy manservantand thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.”In other words, their experience in Egypt asservants would remind them to deal justly withtheir servants by giving them Sabbath rest.

In similar vein God had commanded,“Andif a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, yeshall not vex him . . . for ye were strangers inthe land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33, 34).

It was not unusual for God to hark back tothe Egyptian deliverance as an incentive toobey other commandments. In Deuteronomy24:17, 18, God said, “Thou shalt not pervertthe judgment of the stranger, nor of thefatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment topledge. . . .Thou wast a bondman in Egypt, andthe LORD thy God redeemed thee thence:therefore I command thee to do this thing.”



resurrection cite the upper room meeting ofthe disciples on the same day He arose fromthe grave. To them that gathering was tocelebrate His resurrection. But when we readthe Bible record of the event, we discover thatthe circumstances were quite different. Luketells us that, even though the disciples wereconfronted with the eyewitness story of MaryMagdalene, they “believed not.”“After that heappeared in another form unto two of them,as they walked, and went into the country.And they went and told it unto the residue:neither believed they them. Afterward heappeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat,and upbraided them with their unbelief andhardness of heart, because they believed notthem which had seen him after he was risen”(Mark 16:12-14).

Obviously, none of those upper roomdisciples believed that He was raised, so theycould not have been joyously celebrating theresurrection. John explains their reason forbeing together in these words: “The doorswere shut where the disciples were assembledfor fear of the Jews” (John 20:19).

Thus, we have examined the major


Many wonderful events occurred oncertain days of the week, but we have nocommand to keep them holy. Jesus died forour sins on Friday.That is probably the mostsignificant event in all of recorded history. Itmarks the moment my death sentence wascommuted and my salvation assured. But notone Bible text hints that we should observethis day of such great significance.

It was a dramatic moment when Jesus rosefrom the grave on that Sunday morning, butthere is not a scintilla of biblical evidence thatwe should observe it in honor of theresurrection. Not one instance of Sundayobservance has been found in the recordedScriptures.

There is, of course, a memorial of theresurrection commanded in the Bible, but it isnot Sunday-keeping. Paul wrote: “Thereforewe are buried with him by baptism into death:that like as Christ was raised up from the deadby the glory of the Father, even so we alsoshould walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

Baptism is the memorial of Christ’s death,burial and resurrection. Those who believethat Sunday observance honors His



arguments used against the observance ofGod’s holy Sabbath day. Not one of theobjections provides a trace of evidence thatGod ever changed His mind about theSabbath. When He wrote the word“remember” into the fourth commandment, itwas in reference to the same seventh day thatappears on our wall calendar.Neither men nordemons can diminish the validity of thateternal moral law.

May God grant each one of us thecourage to honor the Sabbath commandmentas heaven’s special test of our love and loyalty.As we have discovered, when Jesus returns, wewill keep that same Sabbath with Him, ageswithout end. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Why God Said Remember32 Library of Sermons

1. Armageddon2. Can a Saved Man Choose to Be Lost?3. Does God’s Grace Blot Out the Law?4. Hidden Eyes and Closed Ears5. How Evolution Flunked the Science Test6. Is It Easier to Be Saved or to Be Lost?7. Man’s Flicker or God’s Flame8. Satan in Chains9. Satan’s Confusing Counterfeits

10. Spirits From Other Worlds11. Thieves in the Church12. Why God Said Remember13. Why the Old Covenant Failed14. The High Cost of the Cross15. Hell-Fire16. Is It Possible to Live Without Sinning?17. Blood Behind the Veil18. Spirits of the Dead19. The Brook Dried Up20. Death in the Kitchen21. The Search for the True Church22. Is It a Sin to Be Tempted?23. Is Sunday Really Sacred?24. Heaven ... Is It for Real?25. Rendezvous in Space26. Christ’s Human Nature27. Point of No Return28. The Rich Man and Lazarus

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Why God Said Remember - manna.amazingfacts.org...Why God Said Remember 9 Why God Said Remember 8 these hellish attempts to discredit God’s authority has produced a bitter success

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