Along the Reformation process, several churches were founded as a result of recognizing Yahuwah’s original Holy day in the Sabbath as described in the Ten Commandments:
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Exodus 20:8
Indeed, we do not read anything like : “dear son, please take appart a day of your choice to worship Me…” but instead we can see that the Sabbath has been specifically chosen by Elohim for us to be a meeting point, a sign of our Covenant.
Yahushua himself did no different. However, he committed a kind of “civil” or rather “scribal disobedience” on certain Shabbats by healing the sick and delivering prisoners from their sins. This indeed scandalized the religious leaders of the time, since they forgot that
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath
Therefore, the blessing of Sabbat becomame a curse to them, as they endorsed a terrible psychological yoke by constantly having to be careful not to violate the law of the Sabbath.
Because the law of Life and Love is ahead of all other decrees
Later, Yahushua also declares that
The Son of Man is (also) Lord of the Sabbath. Luke 6:5
That means that whoever is in the Messiah, he is above the Sabbath himself together with the Messiah.
But but it does not follow that he has the right to exchange the days
Paul himself did never stated anything else even when he was asking the elders not to burden the newly born again brethren with questions of days and dates, since they are still children and they may consider another day to be the holy one according to the purity of their hearths.
As long as it is done out of ignorance and with a pure heart, it is a sweet-smelling sacrifice in the eyes of Elohim. Let them do it as long as their worship is spotless. However, Paul does not add it, but it is clear that sooner or later, as a consequence of the process of sanctification and getting mature in spirit, the Holy Spirit will restore the original order in them as well. It is none of our business to know how long Elohim grants them his patience and when time will come for each one of them.
The original Will of Yahuwah, however, is to sanctify/separate the Sabbat which is Saturday.
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in the Messiah.
Colossians 2:16-17
Saturday as a shadow vs. Saturday as the reality of the Messiah
For us, as Levites in the Heavenly Sanctuary, every day is a Sabbath and a Holy Day
As with all the other Feasts of Yahuwah, being Levite priests living and serving in the Messiah, we are experiencing all the Feasts and Sabbaths in a permanent way in the presence of Yahushua. For us and in spirit, every day is Saturday, Yom Kippur, Pessach and all the other holidays. What matters for us is no more the calendar, the times and the hours, but the continuity and the fulfilment of the Holy Moments in our hearths. See more about this: The Feasts of Yahuwah in Yahushua
However,
those who do not belong to the Messiah are still under the law,
and these laws apply to them according to their original order. They know these Days are appointed so that they can come closer to Yahuwah in order to meet with Him. For us, who are living in Him, these appointed calendar holidays, times and hours are important and should be observed at this level, because ministry towards the outsiders becomes particularly intense at these moments of the year.
People’s hearts are more opened to receive the Word of Elohim through our testimonies and ministries.
We must therefore more than on other days be on alert, ready to attack.
What’s wrong with Sunday
Let us emphasize that Sunday, the first day of the week, Yom Echad, is a very special day and is almost as important as Saturday. Why? Because it was on this day that Elohim started His work of Creation and because it was indeed the first day of the week that our Lord and Savior rose from the Death, thus the New Creation of the fallen Humankind began.
Despite all of these, neither Yahuwah nor the Messiah nor the Holy Spirit ever revealed to anyone that we should switch from Saturday to Sunday.
Why do many still consider Sunday more important then?
Because the disciples gathered on the first day of the week, as we read in the Book of Acts?
- Yes, as they gathered on all the other days of the week as well. Furthermore, we read that they appeared among their traditional Jewish brothers in the synagogues on Saturdays.
Or because we also read that Paul collected the donations on the first day of the week?
- Well, Fom a Jewish perspective, this is exactly the proof, that sundays were not considered as holy by the first disciples, since we do never deal with money or any other material things on a holy day.
Just like in the case of Yahushua’s birth, Elohim did never ask anyone to celebrate his ressurection on a particular day of the week in replacement of the Sabbath.
Are Sunday-keepers wrong?
Yes, of course! Why?
Because they do not understand and recognise what had just been explained above.
In most cases, their Sundays are just the remaining wild shoots of an unweeded catholic root.
They don’t even notice that still not having reconsidered the question of the weekly resting day, they are still perpetuating the constantinian rebellion, which intended to “de-Judaize” the newly adopted state religion. The roman empire of the time had to preserve many pagan traditions, gods and feasts so that the the pagan masses living among them would not rebel against the new order. This is how the holy day of the Sun God (Sunday – Zontag) had taken over Elohim’s original Sabbath. The same occured in the case of Christmas, Easter and all the feasts of all kinds of saints.
To conclude, it is important for us, disciples of a certain spiritual age in the Messiah, to remember that obedience does not consist in making Elohim accept a distortion of human or even demonic origin so as not to upset the spirits and keep the herd in integrity, but on the contrary
it is up to Man to comply with the rules established by Yahuwah who became flesh in the Messiah and who are fulfilled in us by the Holy Spirit.
Some thoughts about Shabbat-keeping churches
One shouldn’t think that returning to the Sabbath makes you an extra-Christian or ensures your Salvation in itself. Unfortunately, it is very sad that the majority of the Saturday-keeping churches do simply restore this Commandment in such a Pharisaic level of mind that the lack of spiritual content not only renders their efforts and reforms futile, but also makes them even greater enemies of the restoration of the true Sabbath than the Roman Church itself with all its false Sundays and feasts.
Very often, the sunday-keepers are literally condemned and it is made a question of salvation if someone insists on keeping Sunday, even by ignorance. Although I also think that continuing in rebellion against something that the Holy Spirit has already enlightened us about can actually lead to the loss of our salvation. But to declare that the observance of this law or any other is a condition of our salvation is simply heresy.
Meanwhile, instead of being filled with the Holy Spirit, these communities idolize their own church founders, and the lack of the leading of the Holy Spirit has in some cases led them all the way back to openly Christless rabbinical Judaism. This is what happened in Transylvania in the last century, where some believers, along with my other Jewish brothers, were finally executed in gas chambers.
Today’s sabbatist tendencies also lead many in the direction of Judaism, or simply of Unitarianism, when many go so far as to start denying the reality of the Holy Trinity.
I mention these cases so that we can see that, although it is very good and necessary to return to the Jewish roots, but
if all this does not happen in the Messiah and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through our rebirth,
we can easily go back under the law according to the murderous letter.
If it is to get there, it is better not to even leave our Egypt, however false its holidays and Sundays may be.
True and effective Reformation
Can we finally accept that
any reform can only come through the Holy Spirit.
Only things that have been burned into your heart are to be considered as real Reforms and not those good intellectual and theological ideas that can pop out of your mind ?
The question of whether we have the Holy Spirit or not?
If we do, did the Holy Spirit already express His will about this matter in our personal life?
If so, do we obey Him?
If not, then let’s make the right decision and not rebel any longer.
If you don’t have the Holy Spirit yet, let’s ask Yahushua for the recognition of your sins, so that you can repent, get baptized with water and then with Fire. Otherwise you’ll go on wallowing in lukewarm and empty religiosity.
So let us choose the Wholeness offered by the Messiah, since it is free and its reward is Eternal Life.
From there it is up to us how much we empower the Holy Spirit to do His sanctifying work in us according to His own will and schedule. Let’s not blame Satan and foreign spirits if we get stuck in a certain spiritual level, since we are the only ones responsible if we empower these instead of the Messiah to stop us.
Persecution will not mostly come from outside, but from those whom we may still consider our brothers today.
Let us be brave keep on with the work of the Holy Spirit, even if we cause division in our communities since the
reformation must continue until we return to the model of the first and true Church described in the book of Acts.
We are not the ones who must do this reformation. We simply have to let the Holy Spirit fulfill this work. The only thing Elohim is expecting from us is to remain obedient in the purity of our hearths and make the steps He wants us to make as soon as He tells us that the moment has come.
See also: Prophet Ezekiel’s Message for Christmas, New Year’s Day: When the Messiah was born!