Do you love the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth (sometimes called Jesus Christ)?
And do you want to serve Him with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength? And do you want to imitate Him, and follow His example?
If that describes you, then one of the most important things that we all can do is to begin by worshipping on the same day He taught His disciples to worship, so as to do as He did, and to walk even as He walked.
This will be a multi-part series. I am not sure how many parts yet, but probably four. And in this first part, we will see how the seventh-day Sabbath is one of the commandments of Elohim (or God), And how both Yeshua Messiah and His disciples kept this seventh-day Sabbath. That means that if we want to be His disciples, and follow His example, we need to rest on the seventh-day Sabbath also.
In future parts, we see how the Catholic Church plays the role of the Anti-Messiah (meaning a false, or substitute Messiah). And how the Catholic Church attempted to change the appointed times of worship, and the laws of Elohim (or God). And we will see how this was all prophesied to happen, and how we are warned against it.
But in this video series, we will see how important it is to obey Yeshua’s example. We will also see how the disciples continued to keep the seventh-day Sabbath and the original Israelite feasts. We will also talk about the Ancient Hebrew Wedding, and how the feasts relate to the ancient Hebrew wedding.
If you want to know all the details, I can recommend that you read The Torah Calendar study. You can read it for free on the Nazarene Israel website. You can also download a PDF copy for free. You can also purchase a paperback or Kindle copy on Amazon.com at our cost. The full details are in that study, for those disciples who want to know what our Father’s word says, so they can please Him by doing it.
Now to begin our study, the Catholic Church has long taught that the Father sent His Son to do away with His laws, and to change the eternal day of worship from the Sabbath to the day of the sun (or Sunday). But if we think about that, what sense does it make? Why would the Father send His Son to teach others to disregard His own laws? If you are a father, do you send your son to teach people to disobey you? And when His Father rests on the seventh day, why would Yeshua teach people to keep Sunday, which is named in honor of the sun? The sun-day is a pagan day of worship.
Why would the Messiah teach the people to keep a pagan day of worship?
And let us also ask ourselves, where is it written that the Messiah would do that?
Amos 3:7
7 “Surely Yahweh Elohim [or the Lord God] does nothing, Unless He [first] reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”
So, where was it ever prophesied that the Father would send His Son to do away with His laws, and to change the eternal days of worship? It does not say that anywhere. And in fact, in the next part of this video series, we will see where Daniel says that it was the “Little Horn” (or the anti-Messiah) who would do that.
What Scripture says in Hitgalut (or Revelation) 12:17 is that:
Hitgalut (Revelation) 12:17
17 “…the dragon [meaning Satan] was enraged with the woman [referring to the bride], and [that] he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, [those] who keep the commandments of Elohim and have the testimony of Yeshua Messiah.”
Does not this indicate that in addition to having the testimony of Yeshua Messiah, that the bride will also be keeping the commandments of Elohim? And is not the 4th commandment (to keep the Sabbath) one of those commandments?
Let us take a look at what the Father’s word says.
B’reisheet (Genesis) 2:2-3
2 “And on the seventh day Elohim ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then Elohim blessed the seventh day and set it apart [sanctified it], because in it He rested from all His work which Elohim had created and made.”
Did that somehow change? Does prophecy say anywhere that the Father would one day change His day of rest from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week?
And if not, why would we want to rest on a different day than the Father rests on?
When the Son takes His bride back to His Father’s house, are they going to rest on different days of worship than His Father rests on?
As we study the Scriptures, what we see time and again is that there is a true body of Messiah and a deceived (or a false) body of Messiah. The true body of Messiah refers to those who both have the testimony of Yeshua, AND are doing their best to follow the Father’s commandments as best they know how, because of their relationship with the Messiah Yeshua.
In contrast, the false body of Messiah refers to those who have the testimony of Yeshua (or perhaps Jesus in their case) but who attempt to ignore or do away with the need to keep the Father’s commandments, because of their alleged belief in Jesus.
Many people are mistaught that simple belief in Jesus does away with the need to keep the commandments of Elohim, in contradiction to Revelation 12:17. If you are one of the ones who was taught that, I encourage you to set aside the traditions and teachings of men for a moment, and take a fresh look at what the Scriptures truly say.
Because we just read that the bride needs not only the testimony of Yeshua but that she also needs to keep the commandments of Elohim. And I would encourage you to do this now because your eternal salvation depends on it.
Let us look at the fourth commandment, which was written in stone.
Shemote (Exodus) 20:8-11
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it set-apart [holy].
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahweh your Elohim. 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.
11 “For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.
Therefore, Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart.”
That means He made the Sabbath day different than all the rest.
But if the fourth commandment was written in stone, then why do so many Christians seem to think that Messiah came to change the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday, when the Messiah never rested on Sunday? And if the Messiah Yeshua is our example, and we are to imitate Him, and walk even as He walked, then what did He do?
Luqa (Luke) 4:16
16 “[Yeshua] 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.”
That means the Messiah’s custom was to go into the synagogues on the Sabbath, and take part in the classic Torah service, also called “the Reading of the Law”– and we will talk a lot more about that in future videos.
For another witness, in:
Marqaus (Mark) 2:27-28
27 “[Yeshua] said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Adon [Master] of the Sabbath.”
So, let us ask ourselves if it was always the Messiah Yeshua’s intention to change the day of worship from the Sabbath to the day of the sun, then why did He never rest on that day? And why did He never tell anyone else to rest on the day of the sun? It doesn’t make sense.
In Mattityahu (Matthew) 12:12, Yeshua tells us:
Mattityahu (Matthew) 12:12
12 “Of how much more value than is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
So again, if Messiah’s intention were to change the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday, why does He not mention doing good on Sunday? It doesn’t make sense.
And speaking about the Great Tribulation in Mattityahu 24:20, Yeshua tells us:
Mattityahu (Matthew) 24:20
20 “…pray that our flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.”
But if the tribulation is still a future event, if He tells us to pray that our flight be not in winter, or on the Sabbath, then does not that imply that we should be keeping the Sabbath now? Or what else could that mean?
So, let us also consider what the apostles did (many years after Messiah’s resurrection.
Ma’asei (Acts) 13:14
14 “… when [Shaul/Paul and Barnabas] departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.”
And then we know that they spoke the word to both Jews and Gentiles in the synagogue.
In Ma’asei 13:42 we read,
Ma’asei (Acts) 13:42
42 “So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.”
So, what we see is both Jews and Gentiles in the synagogues on the Sabbath day (and we will talk a lot more about that in future videos as well).
Also, in Ma’asei (Acts) 15:19-21 we see the Apostle Yaakov (or James) establishing rules for how the returning gentiles (or what are called Ephraimites) might begin to rejoin themselves to the nation of Israel by refraining from four practices which the Torah (or the Law of Moses) says are an abomination. Once they refrain from these four abominable practices, then they could begin to come into the synagogues, where the Torah of Moshe (or Moses) has been read aloud each week since ancient times.
Ma’asei (Acts) 15:19-21
19 “Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are
(re-)turning to Elohim,
20 but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.
21 For Moshe [Moses] has had throughout many generations those who preach him [meaning the Torah of Moshe] in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
And in future videos, we will talk a lot more about what is going on here.
But for now, what we see is that the apostles laid down four ground rules for Gentiles to join (or actually, re-join) the nation of Israel. They ruled that the returning Gentiles should start by observing the four Torah principles that will get one cut off from the nation of Israel. And if the people would start with those four things, then they could come into the synagogues, where they would hear the Torah of Moshe read aloud each week. That way, they would learn to keep the rest of the Torah commandments over time. We will talk about that later, but if you want to know more details, I recommend that you read a copy of the Nazarene Israel study. If you will read the Nazarene Israel study, and take it to heart, you will know more about your Bible than literally 99% of all Christians worldwide.
But what else do we see the apostles doing after the Messiah Yeshua’s resurrection?
Ma’asei (Acts) 16:13
13 “And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.”
So once again, the Sabbath is the day the apostles kept, even many years after Yeshua’s resurrection and ascension.
Ma’asei (Acts) 17:2a
2a “Then Shaul [Paul], as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures…”
So first in Luke 4:16 we saw that it was Messiah’s custom to go into the synagogues on the Sabbath day.
Now in Acts 17:2, we see that this was the Apostle Shaul’s custom as well. So, if it was their custom to worship on the Sabbath, then what should we do, if our goal is to imitate them?
And if it was the custom of the Messiah and His apostles to go into the synagogues on the Sabbath day, then why do so many believers in the Messiah want to go into the churches on Sunday? (We will talk about that in the next section.)
But there are more examples of the disciples going into the synagogues on the Sabbath day.
Ma’asei (Acts) 18:4
4 “Shaul reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks”.
We will see later that refers to what are called “Hellenized Jews”, or what might today be called, a “Reform Jew” or even a “Reconstructionist Jew”. And we will talk about the significance of that in future videos as well.
But again, why would any follower of the Messiah rest on Sunday when neither the Messiah nor His apostles ever did that? And when the Sunday was always understood to be a pagan day of worship dedicated to the sun god? And especially why would they do that, when we stop to consider that the author of the book of Hebrews tells us to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest?
Ivrim (Hebrews) 4:9
9 “There remains therefore a rest [sabbatismos] for the people of Elohim.”
We look up the word “rest”.
G4520 sabbatismos (sab-bat-is-mos’); from a derivative of NT:4521; a “sabbatism”… (referring to a day of rest).
So, now we look up the root.
G4521 sabbaton (sab’-bat-on); of Hebrew origin [H7676]; the Sabbath (i.e., Shabbat)
Now we look up the Hebrew root word in Strong’s Old Testament Concordance:
H7676 (שׁבת) shabbath (shab-bawth’); intensive from H7673; intermission, i.e (specifically) the Sabbath:
We can also look at the Peshitta Aramaic. We see the word for the Sabbath embedded in the text.
| Ivrim (Hebrews) 4:9 9 “There remains therefore a rest [sabbatismos] for the people of Elohim.” |
Ivrim (Hebrews) 4:9 (Peshitta Aramaic) |
And why would the Hebrews not keep the Sabbath, especially when we stop to consider that it is an eternal sign of the covenant between Elohim and His people?
Shemote (Exodus) 31:12-17
12 “…Yahweh spoke to Moshe, saying,
13 “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am Yahweh who sets you apart.
14 “You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is set apart 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.
15 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, set apart to Yahweh. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death…”
16 “Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.
17 It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’”
And in Scripture, there are ways to get around the word “forever”, but there is no way to get around the phrase, “throughout your generations, as a perpetual covenant.”
So, when Yahweh says we are to keep the Sabbath throughout all our generations, as a perpetual covenant, that is exactly what He means. And in the next section, we will see what went wrong in the era of the Catholic Church.
Shalom.