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 became 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 it does not follow that he has the right to exchange the days
Because in this case he becomes a prisoner of another day by the mere act of designating it. After all, Yahushua did not die on the cross to usher in a new day, but to fulfill the existing one!
And being above the law does not give us the right to break the law, but it stands under our feet as one of the foundations so that our own temple, the temple of Ruach HaKodesh, does not shake and stands on solid ground, on the foundations of the law and the prophets, on which the Church itself was built.
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 hearts.
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, Ruach HaKodesh is going to 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
As for the original Saturday as a shadow, let anyone refrain from creating another shadow instead of the former and original one. Moreover, in order to create a series of similar, alternative religious ceremonies: “Then we come together, in this particular place, this is allowed, this is not, we will sing this, for this amount of time, we must read this portion of the Scriptures, pray this and that, in that way, put your tithe in such a box and our offerings in such a basket… and most of all: This one is going to preach because he/she has the required knowledge according to our established theological requirements, like the scribes in the times of Yeshua, etc. Those places where they are training religious robots instead of making disciples by rebirth and leave them be led directly by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Tabernacle in the wilderness, which is our model, is mobile, flexible, going here and there under the guidance of Ruach. So the Law/the Commandments and the one of Shabbat within it, is equally mobile, flexible and has to work as a blessing and means of giving and strengthening life according to the place and the situation.
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 fulfillment of the Holy Moments in our hearts. See more about this: The Feasts of Yahuwah in Yahushua.
In the temporal dimension, the great events of Salvation History were all fulfilled on biblical holidays, so after Shavuot (Pentecost) the next big event waiting to be fulfilled will be Yom HaTrua (Day of Trumpets). So the holidays also have several dimensions, see the other article. But here, we are only going to analyze the holidays on a personal level rather than historic or universal).
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. Because unlike circumcision, the Sabbath is mentioned on the two stone tablets which means that it is part of the 10 Commandments. Thus it also applies to the entire Church and the people of Elohim, those born again in the Messiah. As we read several times with the Passover sacrifice, you should have one law for the sojourner and the stranger, etc. But as born again disciples the law is no more according to the mere letter but living and acting in us through the fire of the Holy Spirit. That’s the main point I strive to make you understand through practically all my teachings.
For Shabbat is a sign between the children of Israel and Elohim. This sign should also be respected and proclaimed as an eternal law by those who are not part of the children of Israel, who are already exempt from the strict observance of this sign, but by having become sons of Elohim through the Blood of the Lamb, they should know the essence of this eternal Sabbath, and as an even greater sign it should be visible on them, every single day of the week. (e.g. when you get aware that people notice how stable you are, how optimistic you are, even in situations when they are in panic. When everyone is afraid of something they can see that you literally walk on water and are not affected by the spiritual traumas that afflict secular people or even your religious peers. This is a type of constant Shabbat experienced internally).
And those who are not aliens, have not yet joined the people of Elohim through the Blood of the Lamb, they must also know these laws. After a week of work, it is natural that on the appointed days they will go towards us, the Levites, if they are looking for Elohim. For us, calendar holidays, times and hours are important and should be observed at this level, because we must know that our service to the outside world becomes particularly intense at these moments.
At such times, hearts are more opened, everyday running and rush stops and openness to the Word of Elohim increases. Because whether you like it or not, Saturday has a strong spiritual and world-wide influence on all the created creatures and they do feel it somewhere deep in their minds and hearts.
On these days, we have to be on the lookout and in this way we have the responsibility of inviting the outsiders to the respect of these appointed days according to the calendar. Moreover, even the fake holidays can also be used, in a wise manner instead of immediately destroying them in the eyes of those who still respect them. Since for them, these false days (sunday, Christmas, etc.) are holidays when their hearts are more open than usual the same way so that they can eventually better receive the Gospel.
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 on this day the Almighty began his work of creation. On this day, Elohim brought the Light, that means Himself as the Messiah, into the already fallen world languishing in chaos and darkness (Tohu VeBehu). Presumably, it was on the first day of a certain week (Sunday), that the same Light of the World was born into the visible world in the person of Yeshua of Nazareth. Also at dawn on Sunday, at the moment when the Sabbath changed to the next day, our Lord Yahushua HaMashiah rose from the dead and it was mainly later that day that the reality of the resurrection was perceived by the external witnesses. In short, without the day of creation, without the first day of the week, neither Saturday nor any other day of the week could exist. Both the creation and the new creation and even the gift of Ruach HaKodesh to the first disciples at Shavuot (Pentecost) began on this precise day which is the symbol of every new beginning. None of these events could have happened on any other day!
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. The collection of donations is the symbol of the beginning of the work. Capital is collected so that it can be distributed, so that it can be used for service, for ministry that is to say for work.
In my own native language for ex., which is Hungarian – although you might have noticed that my accent seems quite frenchy for a Hungarian guy, but let’s not get into my difficult past so we avoid complicating things even more – but in Hungarian Sunday is Vasárnap which is a derivation of two words: Vásár meaning market or marketplace and Nap that means day and sun. So here we can also figure out that the first day of the week is far from being sanctified but rather the day of the market, when we buy the food we need for the following week so that we can start our new journey equipped with all the energy we need.
After his resurrection, our Lord appeared to the disciples, symbolically on Sunday, because a new beginning was opened before us, and not to designate another day to be observed above the others according to a new Pharisaic order. This is what the traditional Jews do with the Sabbath to this day. They are perceiving the law of Shabbat from bellow being themselves still under the law. So they are constantly suffering in order to respect all the regulations (mainly since they have added all the Babylonian extra judaic stuff to it, but this is not the subject of this article).
The law remains the law, Yahushua himself did not change a single iota, that is, he did not even touch the smallest letter, so even less did he replace a whole word such as Shabbat to transcribe it into Yom Echad! But by entering into His body, we entered an eternal Sabbath-rest, where we live the holiness of this day in all moments and for ever. The traditional Christians made a “restless” Sunday out of the traditional Jewish “restless” Sabbath, that is, by declaring that a particular day is chosen above the others, and moreover, their choice did not fall on the original one. Moreover, they are doing all of this on the basis of what Paul declared that we should no longer worry about the designated calendar times and days. This phenomenon is nothing more than the preservation of Pharisaism mixed with the distortion of the law. Double mistake! …the secret power of lawlessness is already at work… 2Thessalonians 2:7
The Blood of the Lamb freed us from keeping the Sabbath according to the letter and time, so that we could live in continuous Sabbath and not to choose another day to continue celebrating the new one in the old, stone-engraved, pharisaical way.
Just like in the case of Yeshua’s birth, Elohim did never ask anyone to celebrate his resurrection or the sending of His Spirit on any particular day of the week in replacement of the Sabbath.
Are Sunday-keepers wrong?
Yes, of course! Why?
Because they do not understand and recognize what had just been explained above. But most of all
in most cases, their Sundays are just the remaining wild shoots of an unweeded catholic root.
And that’s basically the biggest problem of all! It is not a matter of some believers coming together on this day. But then, why did other groups and churches not choose Wednesday, Thursday or any other day? Not for youth-gatherings or other special occasions, but for their worships? If the day is not so important, then why this exclusivity around Sunday?
They do not even recognize that still not having reconsidered the question of the weekly resting day since the beginning of the reformation, they are still perpetuating the constantinian rebellion, which intended to “de-Judaize” the newly adopted state religion together with changing the times, dates and the Names.
The proof of what the cult of Sunday is really about and what its roots are can be found in the English and German languages themselves: Sunday – Zontag
The Latins having had enough intelligence, or rather cunning – since they were the initiators of the terrorist attack of Constantine the “great” – to create a new name for the first day of the week which is derived from the word Lord: Domenica/Domingo/Dimanche).
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. It’s all about politics. This is how the holy day of the Sun God (Sunday – Zontag) had taken over Elohim’s original Sabbath. The same occurred in the case of Christmas, Easter and all the feasts of all kinds of saints.
Thus, 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 together, but on the contrary
it is up to Man to comply with the rules established by Yahuwah. Those Rules that became flesh in the Messiah and that are fulfilled in us by the Holy Spirit.
But again, no longer by letters from tablets of stone or texts printed in books, but by the engraving of the tongues of fire in our hearts, when we feel inside that the mere thought of accepting the Sabbath as a separate day brings peace in us and this without feeling obliged to crawl on the ground as a sign of submission or to bind my hands and feet in order to ensure total respect for the commandments. On the contrary, we feel and experience this kind of freedom when we know that we can and must also heal people like Yeshua did, or even get into a car and drive a few kilometers in order to pull a donkey out of the well, because that is the moment he needs it.
We can experience this feeling of freedom any day of the week.
If I am obedient to the laws that Ruach HaKodesh has placed on my heart and expects from me in accordance with my maturity, in accordance with my spiritual age, I do not have to think about what I should or should not do on this day – just like on the others. The law lives within me, and if I am obedient to it, whatever I may do, I will not break it, for I will not have the desire or thought of doing what is unholy.
From now on, no one should want to transfer anyone from the slavery of the original Saturday to the slavery of a false Sunday, because such a person would have understood nothing of the leading of the Holy Spirit and what it is all about to be a born-again or being an adult in the spirit. Don’t lie to yourself with theological ramblings and especially don’t defile the Holy events that happened on the first day of the week by imposing your new and counterfeit Pharisaism on yourself, on other people or even on the whole world.
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 and the other supposedly reformed little Vaticans with all their false Sundays and feasts.
Very often, the sunday-keepers are literally condemning and it is made a question of salvation if someone insists on keeping Sunday, even by ignorance. I emphasize that ignorantly. In my opinion, having been enlightened and still rebelling against it can indeed lead to the loss of salvation (like any other conscious rebellion). But the majority of believers are merely misled and in the absence of spiritual vision – as their rebirth is either hindered or at least overshadowed by some kind of pastor or other person called a teacher – the misled does not even realize that he is acting against the will of Elohim. Condemning the ignorant is a more serious version of the crime of condemnation itself.
Meanwhile, instead of being filled with the Holy Spirit, these communities idolize their own church founders together with their own theologies, 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 were finally executed in gas chambers along with the genuine Jewish people.
In several cases, however, their path does not lead to Judaism, but to a state of marginal sectarianism similar to Judaism, where the rank of the Messiah Yahushua is questioned and degraded, and he who is the Creator is belittled to the rank of simple creature. Furthermore, they fall into a certain type of replacement theology by starting many times to deny the Judaity of today’s Jews, that is, open anti-Semitism.
The promotion of Khazarian theories, etc., which theory may be true anyway, but in this case the outcome of the matter will surprise many, as it would not mean at all that we, Ashkenazi Jews, are not the descendants of Jacob, even if we have actually made a little tour of a few hundred years in an area called Khazaria. But I explain this in more detail in my writings on The Gathering of the Tribes of Israel of Anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity.
So it is a basic phenomenon of today’s Sabbatist trends that they quickly move in the direction of Judaism, where the emphasis is on the appliance of the law to the letter, while the Messiah is lowered, and the Ruach HaKodesh can only be imagined in theory.
It also develops into a kind of Unitarianism when they begin to deny the reality of Elohim’s threefold appearance.
The falsity of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which seeks to multiply the person of the One Elohim, unfortunately leads many to the denial of the Triple Holiness of Elohim: the three main roles and forms of appearance as the Father, the Son and Ruach HaKodesh. Sooner or later, a very large number of Sabbatarian start to question the divinity of the Messiah. This is when they declare that Yeshua is a creature or even identify him with the archangel Michael. (More about this in my article/video Holy Trinity or Triple Holiness?). And concerning Michael, briefly: he also certainly appeared in human form and all signs point to the fact that he was none other than Moses himself – the other archangel Gabriel being presumably Eliyahu and John (the baptist), but you can learn more about this from my writings TERUMAH and B-Reshit / B-Beginning / B-Plan.
The point is that here, as in so many other cases, one false extreme drives those who realize that there is something wrong with the previous explanations or theories to another equally false extreme.
I mention these cases so that we can see that although it is very good and necessary to return to Jewish roots, a part of which is Shabbat, but
if all this is not done in the Messiah, through the guidance of Ruach HaKodesh and our rebirth,
then we go back under the law according to the letter, which sooner or later is going to kill us. In that case, I dare say, that it would have been better for such a person not even having come out of Egypt or Rome with all their false Sundays.
Both camps have serious issues to settle. The Saturday camp’s distorted testimony about Saturday is responsible for the fact that so many people still go on with their Sundays. However, the majority of people born again and filled with Ruach HaKodesh still refuse to settle this issue and give up their Sundays. Even among religious, non-born again and non-spiritually filled believers, many try harder to observe the laws that the Holy Spirit would like to operate in you too, if you would finally let him do his job! In the first camp, they gradually sink into their pharisaism, and in the second, sooner or later they end up grieving the Holy Spirit.
True and effective Reformation
We have to accept one fundamental truth
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 or because you read it in the Bible ?
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 or any other 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.
You can keep Saturdays this way, even study the Scriptures dressed in white kippahs and clothes, discovering many truths, but you are unable to live the Truth, because it never gets from your head into your heart.
But if you already have the baptism of fire, then urgently give up all your infantile rebellion and finally grow up, because you are in great danger!
Once again, my own testimony: the discovery that Yahuwah is His name was not made by researching in the scriptures, but was revealed by Ruach HaKodesh through my own mouth, after I asked Elohim to reveal to me the way He would like me call Him in the future. Others come to this conclusion after long and convulsive studies of the Scriptures. In many cases, with the help of all kinds of non-biblical writings, such as apocryphal books. What’s the difference between the two? In the first case, the Living Messiah declares out loud, in tongues, what his will is. But in the other case Truth is discovered using scribe (and Pharisee) methods and arises from the dry letters which never become life in them.
First, we should always go to the Messiah and ask him personally what his will is, even by confirming the written Word. But first we should surrender our lives to Him. He also reminds us from within of what stands in the Writings. You often receive a word in your heart in this way, which you might only read later and realize that it had already been written in the Bible a long time ago. Many times, the Word confirms what you have already received in your heart.
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 to stop us.
Behind Sunday-keeping, the same demonic powers are hiding as behind superficial Saturdays lived in the traditional way.
These are the kinds of Saturdays that Yahuwah hates, and even more so in the case of Sundays
Will it be a watershed issue of the end times?
The Antichrist – not after his appearance, since he is already in the world and we can know who he is very precisely – but when he enters the scene and takes power over the world, will, among other things change the times. This had already been greatly fulfilled by the Roman Church and its leader, one of the main foreshadows of the antichrist, Constantine the “great”, precisely and among other things in the conversion from Shabbat to Sunday a few centuries ago.
However, some Christians think this prophecy is going to be fulfilled in the last times by forcing the worship of Sunday, while others, from the other camp, actually think the opposite and that the Antichrist will impose everyone to come back to the Sabbath. Whether he will choose between the two at all, I cannot predict. As I mentioned, the antichrist spirit will have already made this modification two thousand years ago. If, however, and as a confirmation, the Antichrist were to make a particular day mandatory, it would not be the mark of the beast in itself, but at most a part of it. (so that our Adventist friends understand the matter). But here as well, the question will not be whether his choice will fall on Saturday or Sunday, but the problem will be to turn everything to the level of formality and superficiality, beyond the fact that he will exalt and set himself up in Elohim’s temple, proclaiming himself to be Elohim instead of Yahuwah, and the Messiah, instead of Yahushua.
But let’s not fool ourselves. It is not primarily the Antichrist that we need to fear.
Persecution will not mostly come from outside, but from those whom we may still consider our brothers today.
Those who, instead of the model of the original Church, follow and offer other alternatives. Those who either see their salvation in the Law, or by denying them while claiming to have Ruach HaKodesh, are simply trampling on the very order that is the essence of the Holy Spirit, and who thus essentially are blaspheming Him. These phenomena must be feared, because they kill on a spiritual level and from within.
Let us be brave enough to keep on with the work of Ruach HaKodesh, even if we cause division in our communities, even if the two camps just mentioned, the two extremes will curse you. Pharisees will accuse you of being libertine and the lawless ones will accuse you to be legalistic. This is natural and be happy as long as you hear these from both sides, because this is a sign that you are on the right track.
Anyway,
reformation must continue until we return to the model of the first and true Church described in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
We do not carry out this reformation by ourselves, we are only its instruments. Above all, no one should declare that he brought the last reformation to the world, no matter how great his ministry really is and being and example to be followed, because the last one will only be carried out by the Messiah himself when he returns. From our side, we have to constantly work on the following question, we must always seek to fulfill the Next Reformation at our human level. We should be more careful when choosing the names of our ministries, since the spoken word has its weight in the spiritual realm and we can easily mislead ourselves by thinking that after what already happened, no further change or restoration is left to be carried out. We can curse ourselves and prevent the sanctification process to go on. This is not a game. We simply have to let Ruach HaKodesh do this work, primarily within ourselves. The only thing that Elohim expects from us is to accept it in obedience, when He prompts us to change from within and to courageously take every steps when He tells us that the time has come.
The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
Proverbs 28:1
See also: Prophet Ezekiel’s Message for Christmas, New Year’s Day: When the Messiah was born!
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