J
John the Baptist
Guest
Gabbylittleangel said:
******
I like that post! :angel:
The young'ins of today say.. "I do not honor the Sabbath, I get to."
But the [recreated motive] is the same, we LOVE HIM, huh? :wink:
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Are you taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
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How are famous preachers sometimes effected by sin?
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
******
I like that post! :angel:
The young'ins of today say.. "I do not honor the Sabbath, I get to."
But the [recreated motive] is the same, we LOVE HIM, huh? :wink:
S
SputnikBoy
Guest
Gabbylittleangel said:
I appreciate your post but I feel that I must correct you as to what you believe is the Sabbath. Sunday isn't the Sabbath that we're discussing on this thread. Saturday is.
J
Jay T
Guest
Nor is there anything about not stealing, lying, or having any other gods before the Creator, ect....ect.charlesj said:
If you really want to get technical, you don't even have a God who can get you into heaven.......bvecause the New Covenant is only for Israel !
There is no such thing as a Covenant for the gentiles.....and without a covenant, you have no God, and you are not one of His people.
Gabbylittleangel
Member
For example, tell your boss that you will not work on whatever day you want to call the Sabbath, because you are a Christian.SputnikBoy said:
S
SputnikBoy
Guest
Gabbylittleangel said:
That's right. But might I remind you again
that WE don't choose our own Sabbath. God did that FOR US at Creation. He must have decided on the 7th-day for a reason ...the completion of Creation and a memorial to that fact, I guess.
S
SputnikBoy
Guest
Jay T said:
It's the same old thing isn't it Jay T? "Hi", by the way. And thanks for the PM a few weeks ago. I'm back after my short period of pouting. :D It's difficult to stay away from the forum for too long.
Anyway, back to the issue. It IS the same old thing in regard to the New Covenant = abolishing the Sabbath. If not for the Saturday-Sunday thing we wouldn't even be discussing the Old Covenant/New Covenant. No one that I know has a problem regarding obedience to the NINE (Old Testament) Commandments and there would be a hue and cry INDEED if anyone suggested abolishing THEM. It's just that wretched 4th-commandment that continually raises its ugly head and seems to get in the way EVERY time. It's a thorn in the side of every 'Sunday-sabbath-keeping' Christian. None of them can give a scriptural reason for Sunday having replaced the Creation Sabbath.
C
charlesj
Guest
SputnikBoy said:
Hello TEAM! lol
I am going to start a new thread... I will title it CHRISTIANS ARE UNDER THE LAW OF CHRIST....
See you over there...
your servant in Messiah,
charlesj
S
SputnikBoy
Guest
I would suggest that you be careful with that one, charlesj, since 'wishy-washy' Christianity has become what it is out of the 'Christians Are (now) Under The Law of Christ' concept. What it says to MANY is:
"As long as you give mere lip-service to Jesus, it isn't necessary to actually COMMIT yourself to anything else that might be construed by 'NC-keepers' as being legalistic ...willing obedience for instance. You can literally be disobedient to God (commands 1-4) whenever you feel like it or not at all. You are under no obligation at all to honor your neighbor (commands 5-10) and are at liberty to steal, to kill, to commit adultery, to dishonor parents, etc. This old-hat stuff has no place in today's Christianity and was merely given for the Jews ...the OLD COVENANT. Paul took over the reigns of Jesus and did, in fact, BECOME the new Jesus. Paul, not Jesus, is the 'savior' of the 'New Covenant Christians'."
In the minds of many, 'New Covenant Christians' (I believe a total misconception of that term, by the way) can claim to accept Jesus but continue to live like the devil. Once saved (lip-service only, folks!) always saved. This kind of preaching has spawned the lazy, self-righteous, non-committed examples of Christians that we often see today. They don't feel obligated to lift a finger in case it might be seen as 'working one's way to heaven.' 'New Covenant Christianity' is 'do your own thing' Christianity. Just say, "I love Jesus," a hundred times a day and you're in!
So, please bear these type of people in mind when you post the thread, charles. Along with Christianity comes responsibility.
"As long as you give mere lip-service to Jesus, it isn't necessary to actually COMMIT yourself to anything else that might be construed by 'NC-keepers' as being legalistic ...willing obedience for instance. You can literally be disobedient to God (commands 1-4) whenever you feel like it or not at all. You are under no obligation at all to honor your neighbor (commands 5-10) and are at liberty to steal, to kill, to commit adultery, to dishonor parents, etc. This old-hat stuff has no place in today's Christianity and was merely given for the Jews ...the OLD COVENANT. Paul took over the reigns of Jesus and did, in fact, BECOME the new Jesus. Paul, not Jesus, is the 'savior' of the 'New Covenant Christians'."
In the minds of many, 'New Covenant Christians' (I believe a total misconception of that term, by the way) can claim to accept Jesus but continue to live like the devil. Once saved (lip-service only, folks!) always saved. This kind of preaching has spawned the lazy, self-righteous, non-committed examples of Christians that we often see today. They don't feel obligated to lift a finger in case it might be seen as 'working one's way to heaven.' 'New Covenant Christianity' is 'do your own thing' Christianity. Just say, "I love Jesus," a hundred times a day and you're in!
So, please bear these type of people in mind when you post the thread, charles. Along with Christianity comes responsibility.
J
John the Baptist
Guest
SputnikBoy said:
*******
Perhaps the Epistle of Christ/less (2 Corinthians 3:3) ones still profess to be Christians. But, to be called Christians by any Christian, is not Truthful in any form of Covenant, Old or New, as 1 John 2:4 clearly inspired by the Holy Ghost tel's all that are included!
---John
Gabbylittleangel
Member
Some food for thought:
Rom 14:5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day [alike]. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. Rom 14:6 He that regardeth the day, regardeth [it] unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard [it].....
Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]...
Mar 2:27-28 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Luk 6:5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Luk 13:14...Jesus had healed on the sabbath day...
Luk 13:15 The Lord then answered him, and said, [Thou] hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or [his] ass from the stall, and lead [him] away to watering?
Jhn 5:8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
Jhn 5:9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
Jhn 5:10 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry [thy] bed.
Jhn 5:16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
He is Lord of the sabbath. My suggestion is that you ask Him what he would have you. If you make Him Lord of your life, He will make known to you what he wants from you and on what days he wants it.
My suggestion to the "Sabbath police' is to pray over all of those that offend you by what day they honor or dishonor. Pray that they would walk close to the Lord, and seek truth and righteousness.
If there is any message that is common in all of my post, on any topic, any doctrine, any relationship, it is "ASK HIM."
Rom 14:5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day [alike]. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. Rom 14:6 He that regardeth the day, regardeth [it] unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard [it].....
Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]...
Mar 2:27-28 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Luk 6:5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Luk 13:14...Jesus had healed on the sabbath day...
Luk 13:15 The Lord then answered him, and said, [Thou] hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or [his] ass from the stall, and lead [him] away to watering?
Jhn 5:8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
Jhn 5:9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
Jhn 5:10 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry [thy] bed.
Jhn 5:16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
He is Lord of the sabbath. My suggestion is that you ask Him what he would have you. If you make Him Lord of your life, He will make known to you what he wants from you and on what days he wants it.
My suggestion to the "Sabbath police' is to pray over all of those that offend you by what day they honor or dishonor. Pray that they would walk close to the Lord, and seek truth and righteousness.
If there is any message that is common in all of my post, on any topic, any doctrine, any relationship, it is "ASK HIM."
S
SputnikBoy
Guest
Gabbylittleangel said:
Well, for one you seem to be giving Paul the status of God. For another, this text isn't referring to the 7th-day Sabbath at all, Gabby. Please read it in context with the theme of the message. As mentioned previously, NOT ONE Jesus believing individual back in Paul's day would have DREAMED of NOT honoring the 7th-day Sabbath. It must be remembereed that the Saturday/Sunday 'thing' wasn't an issue back then. Besides that, NO ONE other than God would have had the authority to change the solemnity of the Creation day for another.
Gabbylittleangel said:
Again, this has nothing to do with the advocating of a new 'holy day' (Sunday). I know you're not meaning to do this but these kinds of texts are used constantly as red herrings. They are not saying what people want them to say. Ask yourself ...what authority did Paul have to be telling people to ignore a command of God? Also ask yourself, WOULD Paul have done so anyway? The answer is 'no.'
Gabbylittleangel said:
Again, another red herring. Why do Christians continually use this text to support a SUNDAY 'sabbath'?
Gabbylittleangel said:
Which is supposed to mean that Sunday is now the new 'holy day' ...? I'm sorry but I can't see the reasoning behind using those texts to somehow support a change of 7th-day Sabbath keeping to Sunday.
Gabbylittleangel said:
Again, Jesus is not advocating dishonoring the 7th-day Sabbath. This particular subject is one of hypocrisy.
Gabbylittleangel said:
Jesus kept the spirit of the Sabbath as opposed to the letter. One is legalism (as in Pharisee) and the other is obedience (as in honoring God).
Gabbylittleangel said:
They were a bunch of legalists with no heart for the real meaning of the Sabbath. No cigars for the 'Sunday-sabbath' folks on this one.
Gabbylittleangel said:
He's already made it known to us, Gabby. It's found in the 4th-commandment.
Gabbylittleangel said:
'Sabbath police' is somewhat harsh, Gabby. Most of us are responding to posts on a thread more so than hitting people over the head with the Sabbath. And, believe it or not, honoring the Sabbath is supposed to be 'a delight'. (Isaiah 58:13) It should have NOTHING to do with being legalistic and 'police-like.'
Gabbylittleangel said:
I'm sure that many sabbatarians have done just that, Gabby. He's led them to the 7th-day Sabbath. It's a problem isn't it? Jesus seems to respond to those that 'ask Him' in different ways. Then, that can lead to people believing that they are right and someone else is wrong.
C
charlesj
Guest
Jay T said:
Hello Jay:
Glad you brought the covenant up. The Lord DID made a covenant with the House of Israel (Heb 8:8ff) and Yahshua sealed it with His Blood.
The Hebrew writer tells us (HEb 9:16ff) that the Lord acted as a "testator"
and when the testator (the Lord) died, that agreement was sealed. That agreement that the testator made was like a will (it wasn't a will). When the testator died, no one can change it! That "will" (new Covenant) was carried out by His apostles after He died.
One of the great things that we should be excited about is that the LORD did NOT leave the Gentile believer out of the equatiion.
The apostle Paul tells us at one time we were NOT a part of the commonwealt of Israel and even strangers from the covenants, but NOW we are included through Yahshua the MEssiah....
Ephesians 2:12-14 12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Your servant in Messiah,
charlesj
Lewis
Member
This is why the sabbath was changed, but you really can't change it, because God did not change it, but it was done without the permission of God.
On March 7, 321 A.D., the first National Sunday Law in history was issued. This was the first "blue law" to be issued by a civil government. Here is the text of this, Constantine's first Sunday law decree:
"Let all judges and townspeople and occupations of all trades rest on the venerable day of the Sun [Sunday]; nevertheless, let those who are situated in the rural districts freely and with full liberty attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it so frequently happens that no other day may be so fitting for ploughing grains or trenching vineyards, lest at the time the advantage of the moment granted by the provision of heaven may be lost. Given on the Nones [seventh] of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls, each of them, for the second time."--The Code of Justinian, Book 3, title 12, law 3.
Five additional Sunday laws were to be issued by Constantine within a very few years to strengthen this, his first Sunday edict.
When Constantine was issuing his Sunday laws, was he a consistent Christian? Hardly. At that very time he was embellishing the Temple of the Sun in Rome. In the same year that he proclaimed his first Sunday law, he made several decrees maintaining pagan practices, such as consulting with heathen priests for guidance, who would then watch the flight of birds, or cut open animals, in order to know the advice to give. All this Constantine legalized.
The very next day after giving his famous Sunday Law of March 7, 321, quoted above, Constantine made another law for pagan soothsayers. When lightning should strike a public building, the heathen prophets were to be consulted as to its meaning.
Constantine's Sunday law was made to favor both the Christians and the Mithrites. In that law, Christianity is not mentioned. The day is called "the venerable day of the Sun" (venerabili die solis). That was the mystical name for the worship day of Mithra, the sun god. Both the heathen and the Christians knew this.
The objective of Constantine and high Christian Church officials was to bring peace through mutual compromise. It was on the doctrine of Sunday that the religions of the empire could best unite. Sunday sacredness was common both to the Sun-worshipers and to compromising Christians. Making that day the sacred day of Christendom could bring the heathen into the Church. And so it happened.
It is a historical fact that when Constantine issued this first imperial Sunday edict of A.D. 351, enforcing the observance of Sunday by the people of the Roman Empire,--he himself was still a worshiper of Sol Invictus, "the Invincible Sun" (Mithra), as well as being the Pontifex Maximus (supreme pagan pontiff or priest) of Roman heathen worship as the state religion. Both he and the Christian leaders at Rome were half-converted Christians and together they worked to unite all under one church roof.
In another of his six Sunday laws, he gave the order that the soldiers be marched out into the field every Sunday morning for a sunrise service, there to recite a prayer as, with closed eyes, they faced toward the rising sun. Pagan ritual had required that they face the sun in a sunrise service as they gave their prayers to the sun god, so this feature was required in this Sunday edict.
Victor Duruy, a French historian, tells us more about this:
"He [Constantine] sent to the legions, to be recited upon that day [Sunday] a form of prayer which could have been employed by a worshiper of Mithra, of Serapis, or of Apollo, quite as well as by a Christian believer. This was the official sanction of the old custom of addressing a prayer to the rising sun."--Victor Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. 7, page 489.
Franz Cumont (in Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, page 55) explains that Sol Invictus (Mithra) was the family god of both Constantine's father as well as himself.
Careful historians have concluded that Constantine passed his Sunday laws at the instigation of Christian leaders. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (270-338), was one of Constantine's closest religious advisors. He later wrote this:
"All things whatsoever it was duty to do on the [Seventh-day] Sabbath, these WE [the church leaders] have transferred to the Lord's day."--Commentary on the Psalms, in Migne, patrologia graeca, Vol. 23, col. 1171.
Commenting on this heaven-daring change, one historical writer wrote this:
"Not a single testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine. Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges its falsity, and points to the real authors of the change. 'All things' he says, 'whatever that it was duty [commanded by God] to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day.' But the Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden men in trampling upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be honored by the world accepted the popular festival."--E.G. White, The Great Controversy, page 574.
This was the beginning of something new and ominous for the Church. Sylvester (314-337) was the pope during the reign of Constantine. His attitude toward the Bible Sabbath, which God gave to mankind at the Creation of this world is shown in the following quotation:
"If every Sunday is to be observed joyfully by the Christians on account of the resurrection, then every Sabbath on account of the burial is to be regarded in execration [loathing or cursing] of the Jews." --quoted by S.R.E. Humbert, Adversus Graecorum calumnias 6, in Patrologie Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J.P. Migne, page 143.
By the year 325, Constantine had come to fullest power, and a large council was called to which leaders of the Christian Church, from all over the Empire, were commanded to come. This was the Council of Nicaea, during which the church leaders decreed that Easter must be kept only on a certain Sunday of each year, instead of the Biblical manner in which it had been observed by Christians up to that time. Immediately afterward, Constantine issued a decree that everyone must obey the rulings of this council, on pain of imprisonment or death.
As soon as Church and State unite, the result is always persecution of religious dissenters. Trouble was ahead for the people of God.
Shortly after this, the first recorded church legislation commanding Sunday was enacted at the Council of Laodicea, which convened a year or two before Constantine's death in A.D. 336.
In order to avoid the gradually-intensifying persecution by church and government authorities, many humble Christians tried to keep both days. They knew that the Seventh-day Sabbath was the only weekly holy day anywhere in Scripture, but at the same time they sought to avoid trouble with the authorities. For this reason, Sozomen, a church historian of that time, tells us that many "were assembling together on the Sabbath as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria."--Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, Book 7, chapter 19.
Sozomen lived a hundred years after the time of Constantine. Even at that late date, many local churches were still trying to keep the Bible Sabbath. Notice that Rome and Alexandria were the exceptions; they totally ignored the Bible Sabbath.
Here is what the church historian, Socrates, who died in A.D. 440, wrote nearly a hundred years after Constantine's Sunday Law Decree was issued:
"Although almost all churches through the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this."--Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Books, chapter 22.
People cannot "cease" to do what they have never done, and so we can know that even at Rome and Alexandria the Bible Sabbath was once kept in earlier centuries.
But, at the same time, we see that 400 years after the death of Christ, and 100 years after Constantine's linking of Church and State by his Sunday law edict,--Rome and Alexandria were the only places in the world where many of the Christians kept only Sunday, and not the Bible Sabbath.
This is truly remarkable. In spite of decrees and punishments, church leader threats and governmental decrees,--the true Sabbath of the Bible was still being widely kept a hundred years after the church-state religious cartel began enforcing Sunday observance.
We can understand why Rome and Alexandria should not bother to keep it, for they had not done so for 200 years. Throughout the entire history of the changeover from Sabbath to Sunday, Rome and Alexandria had worked together: Alexandria providing philosophical reasons for the changes; Rome providing the decrees and anathemas.
Constantine's help was given only to the worldly church leaders at Rome; those Christians that resisted the errors that were being introduced into the church met with his opposition. "Unite with the bishop of Rome or be destroyed," was Constantine's position.
"Great as were the favors which Constantine showed to the church, they were only for that strong, close-knit, hierarchically organized portion that called itself 'Catholic.' The various [so-called] 'heretical' sects could look for no bounty from his hands."--Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, page 105.
It was May of A.D. 337--the thirtieth year of his reign,--and the emperor felt that the end was near, so he called for his close friend, bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia to baptize him. He had for decades decided that he would not be baptized until just before his death.
Only eleven years earlier, he had his favorite son, Crispus--who had helped him so much in the campaigns against Licinus,--put to death. Shortly thereafter his second wife, Fausta, was slain at his command. His had been a long life, and now it was over.
But the effects of that life reach down to our own time. The errors that he helped establish within the Church are with us to this day. Without his help it is questionable whether the Roman Catholic church-state control of Europe could have begun, been as strong, or lasted for so long a period of time. He laid a foundation upon which church leaders have built for centuries.
"Wiser than Diocletian, he gave new life to an aging Empire by associating it with a young religion, a vigorous organization, a fresh morality. By his aid Christianity became a state as well as a church, and the mold, for fourteen centuries, of European life and thought. Perhaps, if we except Augustus, the grateful Church was right in naming him the greatest of the emperors." -- Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, page 664.
The shift from the Bible Sabbath to Sunday was completed by the seventh century, as the popes, consolidating their enormous power, persecuted all who resisted their innovations.
The only solution for those who would today seek the true Bible faith is to read and obey the holy Scriptures. There you will find the pure faith and the only correct teachings, uncorrupted by the errors that Constantine and others brought into the Christian Church more than a thousand years ago.
http://www.pathlights.com/theselastdays ... ct_22b.htm
On March 7, 321 A.D., the first National Sunday Law in history was issued. This was the first "blue law" to be issued by a civil government. Here is the text of this, Constantine's first Sunday law decree:
"Let all judges and townspeople and occupations of all trades rest on the venerable day of the Sun [Sunday]; nevertheless, let those who are situated in the rural districts freely and with full liberty attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it so frequently happens that no other day may be so fitting for ploughing grains or trenching vineyards, lest at the time the advantage of the moment granted by the provision of heaven may be lost. Given on the Nones [seventh] of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls, each of them, for the second time."--The Code of Justinian, Book 3, title 12, law 3.
Five additional Sunday laws were to be issued by Constantine within a very few years to strengthen this, his first Sunday edict.
When Constantine was issuing his Sunday laws, was he a consistent Christian? Hardly. At that very time he was embellishing the Temple of the Sun in Rome. In the same year that he proclaimed his first Sunday law, he made several decrees maintaining pagan practices, such as consulting with heathen priests for guidance, who would then watch the flight of birds, or cut open animals, in order to know the advice to give. All this Constantine legalized.
The very next day after giving his famous Sunday Law of March 7, 321, quoted above, Constantine made another law for pagan soothsayers. When lightning should strike a public building, the heathen prophets were to be consulted as to its meaning.
Constantine's Sunday law was made to favor both the Christians and the Mithrites. In that law, Christianity is not mentioned. The day is called "the venerable day of the Sun" (venerabili die solis). That was the mystical name for the worship day of Mithra, the sun god. Both the heathen and the Christians knew this.
The objective of Constantine and high Christian Church officials was to bring peace through mutual compromise. It was on the doctrine of Sunday that the religions of the empire could best unite. Sunday sacredness was common both to the Sun-worshipers and to compromising Christians. Making that day the sacred day of Christendom could bring the heathen into the Church. And so it happened.
It is a historical fact that when Constantine issued this first imperial Sunday edict of A.D. 351, enforcing the observance of Sunday by the people of the Roman Empire,--he himself was still a worshiper of Sol Invictus, "the Invincible Sun" (Mithra), as well as being the Pontifex Maximus (supreme pagan pontiff or priest) of Roman heathen worship as the state religion. Both he and the Christian leaders at Rome were half-converted Christians and together they worked to unite all under one church roof.
In another of his six Sunday laws, he gave the order that the soldiers be marched out into the field every Sunday morning for a sunrise service, there to recite a prayer as, with closed eyes, they faced toward the rising sun. Pagan ritual had required that they face the sun in a sunrise service as they gave their prayers to the sun god, so this feature was required in this Sunday edict.
Victor Duruy, a French historian, tells us more about this:
"He [Constantine] sent to the legions, to be recited upon that day [Sunday] a form of prayer which could have been employed by a worshiper of Mithra, of Serapis, or of Apollo, quite as well as by a Christian believer. This was the official sanction of the old custom of addressing a prayer to the rising sun."--Victor Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. 7, page 489.
Franz Cumont (in Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, page 55) explains that Sol Invictus (Mithra) was the family god of both Constantine's father as well as himself.
Careful historians have concluded that Constantine passed his Sunday laws at the instigation of Christian leaders. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (270-338), was one of Constantine's closest religious advisors. He later wrote this:
"All things whatsoever it was duty to do on the [Seventh-day] Sabbath, these WE [the church leaders] have transferred to the Lord's day."--Commentary on the Psalms, in Migne, patrologia graeca, Vol. 23, col. 1171.
Commenting on this heaven-daring change, one historical writer wrote this:
"Not a single testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine. Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges its falsity, and points to the real authors of the change. 'All things' he says, 'whatever that it was duty [commanded by God] to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day.' But the Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden men in trampling upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be honored by the world accepted the popular festival."--E.G. White, The Great Controversy, page 574.
This was the beginning of something new and ominous for the Church. Sylvester (314-337) was the pope during the reign of Constantine. His attitude toward the Bible Sabbath, which God gave to mankind at the Creation of this world is shown in the following quotation:
"If every Sunday is to be observed joyfully by the Christians on account of the resurrection, then every Sabbath on account of the burial is to be regarded in execration [loathing or cursing] of the Jews." --quoted by S.R.E. Humbert, Adversus Graecorum calumnias 6, in Patrologie Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J.P. Migne, page 143.
By the year 325, Constantine had come to fullest power, and a large council was called to which leaders of the Christian Church, from all over the Empire, were commanded to come. This was the Council of Nicaea, during which the church leaders decreed that Easter must be kept only on a certain Sunday of each year, instead of the Biblical manner in which it had been observed by Christians up to that time. Immediately afterward, Constantine issued a decree that everyone must obey the rulings of this council, on pain of imprisonment or death.
As soon as Church and State unite, the result is always persecution of religious dissenters. Trouble was ahead for the people of God.
Shortly after this, the first recorded church legislation commanding Sunday was enacted at the Council of Laodicea, which convened a year or two before Constantine's death in A.D. 336.
In order to avoid the gradually-intensifying persecution by church and government authorities, many humble Christians tried to keep both days. They knew that the Seventh-day Sabbath was the only weekly holy day anywhere in Scripture, but at the same time they sought to avoid trouble with the authorities. For this reason, Sozomen, a church historian of that time, tells us that many "were assembling together on the Sabbath as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria."--Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, Book 7, chapter 19.
Sozomen lived a hundred years after the time of Constantine. Even at that late date, many local churches were still trying to keep the Bible Sabbath. Notice that Rome and Alexandria were the exceptions; they totally ignored the Bible Sabbath.
Here is what the church historian, Socrates, who died in A.D. 440, wrote nearly a hundred years after Constantine's Sunday Law Decree was issued:
"Although almost all churches through the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this."--Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Books, chapter 22.
People cannot "cease" to do what they have never done, and so we can know that even at Rome and Alexandria the Bible Sabbath was once kept in earlier centuries.
But, at the same time, we see that 400 years after the death of Christ, and 100 years after Constantine's linking of Church and State by his Sunday law edict,--Rome and Alexandria were the only places in the world where many of the Christians kept only Sunday, and not the Bible Sabbath.
This is truly remarkable. In spite of decrees and punishments, church leader threats and governmental decrees,--the true Sabbath of the Bible was still being widely kept a hundred years after the church-state religious cartel began enforcing Sunday observance.
We can understand why Rome and Alexandria should not bother to keep it, for they had not done so for 200 years. Throughout the entire history of the changeover from Sabbath to Sunday, Rome and Alexandria had worked together: Alexandria providing philosophical reasons for the changes; Rome providing the decrees and anathemas.
Constantine's help was given only to the worldly church leaders at Rome; those Christians that resisted the errors that were being introduced into the church met with his opposition. "Unite with the bishop of Rome or be destroyed," was Constantine's position.
"Great as were the favors which Constantine showed to the church, they were only for that strong, close-knit, hierarchically organized portion that called itself 'Catholic.' The various [so-called] 'heretical' sects could look for no bounty from his hands."--Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, page 105.
It was May of A.D. 337--the thirtieth year of his reign,--and the emperor felt that the end was near, so he called for his close friend, bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia to baptize him. He had for decades decided that he would not be baptized until just before his death.
Only eleven years earlier, he had his favorite son, Crispus--who had helped him so much in the campaigns against Licinus,--put to death. Shortly thereafter his second wife, Fausta, was slain at his command. His had been a long life, and now it was over.
But the effects of that life reach down to our own time. The errors that he helped establish within the Church are with us to this day. Without his help it is questionable whether the Roman Catholic church-state control of Europe could have begun, been as strong, or lasted for so long a period of time. He laid a foundation upon which church leaders have built for centuries.
"Wiser than Diocletian, he gave new life to an aging Empire by associating it with a young religion, a vigorous organization, a fresh morality. By his aid Christianity became a state as well as a church, and the mold, for fourteen centuries, of European life and thought. Perhaps, if we except Augustus, the grateful Church was right in naming him the greatest of the emperors." -- Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, page 664.
The shift from the Bible Sabbath to Sunday was completed by the seventh century, as the popes, consolidating their enormous power, persecuted all who resisted their innovations.
The only solution for those who would today seek the true Bible faith is to read and obey the holy Scriptures. There you will find the pure faith and the only correct teachings, uncorrupted by the errors that Constantine and others brought into the Christian Church more than a thousand years ago.
http://www.pathlights.com/theselastdays ... ct_22b.htm
J
John the Baptist
Guest
Lewis W said:Boy he sure messed up everything.:
*******
The devil made me do it?? Surely!! The carnal heart has no motive to do what the Godhead require. They must be Born Again as seen who has the Holy Spirit given to them in Acts 5:32
Christ tel's it so very simple with '[IF] ye LOVE ME KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS', that the Universe can see the problem. Even our small children are not 'brain dead'! Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 Are these in 1 John 2:4 Christians? Sorry, but to say so, is not what the beloved John was Inspired to say!
---John
Gabbylittleangel
Member
Charles,
:smt024 You need to do some editing on this post. You have a quote attributed to me that I did not post. I would appreciate it, and I imagine that whoever said it would be pleased also.
Hello Jay:
Blessings.
:smt024 You need to do some editing on this post. You have a quote attributed to me that I did not post. I would appreciate it, and I imagine that whoever said it would be pleased also.
charlesj said:
Hello Jay:
Blessings.
C
charlesj
Guest
error
error
error
J
John the Baptist
Guest
Gabbylittleangel said:
*********
:roll: :roll: ???? :wink: ---J.t.B.
C
charlesj
Guest
John t. b.
Hello John:
I know this post (above) is driving you nuts.... I posted to JayT and nested inside his post was another post... somehow, Gabbytheangel got quoted (which was in error). I corrected it.
Now, I'm leaving for the coast http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/find ... ng_island/
for about a week (unless I extend it), so I hope you can be calm and leave eveybody alone until I get back. I know you will miss me.
I should be back, the Lord willing, Monday or Tuesday of next week.
your servant in Messiah, Yahshua
charlesj
Hello John:
I know this post (above) is driving you nuts.... I posted to JayT and nested inside his post was another post... somehow, Gabbytheangel got quoted (which was in error). I corrected it.
Now, I'm leaving for the coast http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/find ... ng_island/
for about a week (unless I extend it), so I hope you can be calm and leave eveybody alone until I get back. I know you will miss me.
I should be back, the Lord willing, Monday or Tuesday of next week.
your servant in Messiah, Yahshua
charlesj