WWUTT 218 All Days Alike?

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Why is it that we no longer observe Saturday as the Sabbath day? Do we just cut that commandment out of the
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Ten Commandments and we don't have to follow it anymore? Well, Christ fulfilled all of the laws related to the Sabbath, so in Christ, He is our
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Sabbath rest when we understand the text. You are listening to When We Understand The Text, an online
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Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .wwutt
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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky, my darling wife, who opens and closes this program every time you listen in.
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She is pregnant, and we are expecting baby number four. So thankful to God for His continued provision and blessing upon our family, adding to our ranks.
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We've made the announcement already in church, and if you follow me on Twitter, I've mentioned it there, but I wanted to share it with you here as well.
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Thank you for your prayers and your continued encouragement to our family.
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We read the emails. My wife and I will read the emails together. In fact, this past Saturday when we took a field trip, we're a homeschooling family, so sometimes educational field trips are involved.
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And when we got in the van, we were riding, and I said, you know, I left an email open on my phone, but I haven't had the chance to read it yet.
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Would you read it to me? And so she picked my phone up and read an email from one of our listeners. So I thank you so much for your continued encouragement of this program and listening in every day.
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And Becky appreciates it, too. Romans chapter 14. We're going to start in verse 5 to verse 12 here.
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One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.
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Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the
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Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the
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Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.
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For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the
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Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be
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Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother or you?
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Why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the
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Lord, every knee shall bow to me, every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
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The latter half of this we're going to look more at tomorrow, but I want to come and look again at some things that we were talking about yesterday and kind of expand this out a little bit more.
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So in verse five, Paul says, one person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.
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Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. So we talked yesterday about how this pertains to which day that we worship on.
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And in the context of this Roman Christian church in the first century, this would have been a constant disagreement between the
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Jews and the Gentiles within this church. Those who were Jews had a Jewish heritage. They believed that Saturday was to be the day of worship.
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And those who were Gentiles who had been converted to Christianity believed Sunday was the day of worship because that's the
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Lord's day. That's the day that Christ came back from the grave. The Sabbath, the seventh day, was the day that God rested.
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That's the day that's given the tenth commandment, the ten commandments that we are supposed to honor, the fourth commandment. You will remember the
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Lord's day and keep it holy. So the Jews felt like that was the day that we needed to worship on.
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So there were some disagreements between the Jews and the Gentiles in this particular church. And Paul was saying not to look down on one another for these things.
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But each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. If a person is convinced that Saturday is the day that we should be worshiping on, then be fully convinced.
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Don't just go into Saturday going, man, I don't know. I feel like this is the day that I should be worshiping on.
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But they make some good arguments about Sunday as well. Enjoy the day. Don't let anything be conflicted in your mind that would prevent you from worshiping the
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Lord on that day, really committing that day to the worship of God. And same with Sunday.
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Let those who believe Sunday be that day, not be struggling with, well, what's the deal with Saturday? I mean, that's still the
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Sabbath. Are we supposed to be honoring on Saturday? You know, on and on it goes. I met a guy from Alaska, actually planted a
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Southern Baptist church. I want to say it was an anchorage. And when he met me, he says, we have the second largest Southern Baptist church in Anchorage.
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And I was like, wow, that's fantastic. He said, there's only two Southern Baptist churches in Anchorage. I said, that's still pretty fabulous. All the way up in Anchorage, Alaska, there's two
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Southern Baptist churches up there. That's amazing in itself. You're about as far to the northwest as you can be from the south where the
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Southern Baptist church originated. So anyway, this church that he planted met on Tuesdays.
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That was the day, the main day that they worship. I think they had another service like Friday night or something like that, which would be the equivalent of what most churches do on Wednesday.
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But for them, their main day of worship was Tuesday, and it was a Tuesday evening when they gathered together.
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They are fully convinced that that is the day they are committed to the Lord and being together as the body of Christ and growing together.
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That's fantastic. So I think that traditionally, Sunday should be the day that we stick with, though, because you have mentioned the
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Lord's Day in places like First Corinthians 16 in Revelation chapter one, when John is receiving the revelation of Christ, he says that he was in the
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Lord on the Lord's Day. So talking about worshiping on a Sunday, because that is the day that Christ came back from the grave.
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I believe that in just a good spirit of unity and so not to cause confusion, that should be the day that we all recognize as being the day of worship.
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But it's not wrong that a church would gather together and worship on a Tuesday evening, but be fully convinced which day of the week you are committing to the
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Lord. I think that it is still pertinent, relevant that we all take a day that we're not working.
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We're not trying to fit all these other chores in. We're not making shopping trips or doing these kinds of things, but we are gathering together as family.
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Maybe we use that day to read Christian books. We commit that day to more prayer and Bible study than we would any other day of the week.
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And of course, gathering together with the saints, being with church family. That should be our priority for that day,
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Sunday, if that is the day that your church is gathering together. Let nothing else take precedence over church attendance.
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Now, of course, there's a precedence for church attendance in my family because I'm the pastor. But even when we go on vacation as a family, we're still plotting a place that we can go to church.
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Like in our route, in our travels, if we happen to be on the road on a Sunday, we're going to be sure that wherever we're stopping, there's somewhere that we can go to church.
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We don't want our kids to get the idea that vacation means we also take a vacation from church. No, we are still committed to attending church, worshiping
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God with the saints and studying the word of God together. So that's what the Lord's Day is for.
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Now, what about Sabbath? What about those who still recognize the Sabbath, like, say, for example,
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Seventh -day Adventists? They believe that the Lord's Day should be on Saturday, or they still recognize the
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Sabbath as being the day of worship. After all, we're reading here, verses five and six, one person esteems one day is better than another, while another esteems all days alike.
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Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor to the
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Lord. So isn't the Adventist just choosing to worship on Saturday because he's fully convinced that's the day that he should worship?
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Well, when it comes to Seventh -day Adventism, it actually goes quite a bit deeper than that.
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Infused in the SDA movement is this entire hermeneutic related to the Sabbath day. So when you go to the
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SDA church's website, there's a section of bylaws that's over 6 ,000 words long, committed to proper
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Sabbath observance. A person's keeping of the Sabbath day serves as a kind of test as to whether or not that person is genuine in their faith and the worship of God.
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Here's what it says in their bylaws, meaningful Sabbath observance indicates that acceptance of God as creator and owner and acknowledges his authority over all creation, including oneself.
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Sabbath observance is based on the authority of God's word. There is no other logical reason for it.
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So in other words, if a person worships on any other day but Saturday, according to Seventh -day Adventism, then they are not submissive to the authority of God's word.
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It goes even deeper than that. The bylaws say meaningful Sabbath observance testifies to the fact that we have chosen to obey
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God's commandment. We thus recognize that our life is now lived in obedience to God's word.
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The Sabbath will be a special test in the end time. The believer will have to make a choice either to give allegiance to God's word or to human authority.
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So here's the problem. Seventh -day Adventists have raised to a fundamental importance
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Sabbath worship. If you are not worshiping on the Sabbath, then there is a pretty good likelihood
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God is not going to let you into the kingdom of God. They've basically made that an essential doctrine. So that is what's so problematic about Seventh -day
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Adventism. Colossians 2, 16 -17 says this, Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a
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Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
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So when it comes to the Old Testament laws related to food and drink, festivals and new moons and Sabbaths, all of these things had a purpose.
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They were all pointing towards something. They were a shadow of the things to come, all of which belongs to Christ.
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Jesus fulfilled all of the laws of the Sabbath. There was more than just the fourth commandment. There was this whole litany of laws that pertain to Sabbath observance.
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And Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets. So in Christ Jesus, he is our
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Sabbath rest. Why is it that we don't observe the Sabbath as the day of worship anymore?
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Why is it that we are worshiping on Sunday instead of Saturday? Well, it's because that Christ fulfilled all of the laws pertaining to the
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Sabbath. Remember Christ was crucified on a Friday. He was in the tomb resting through the
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Sabbath and then came back to life on Sunday. So he fulfilled all laws of the Sabbath, even through his crucifixion, his burial in the tomb and then his resurrection from the grave.
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So because Christ has fulfilled these laws, he is our Sabbath rest. We read at the end of Matthew chapter 11, the famous verse where Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
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For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And then right after that, in Matthew chapter 12, we have the story about Jesus as the
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Lord of the Sabbath. When Jesus and the disciples were going through the grain fields on the Sabbath and the Pharisees saw the disciples who were hungry and they began to pluck the heads of grain.
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So they criticized the disciples for working on the Sabbath. But Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
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Sabbath and Jesus himself being the Lord of the Sabbath. And so he is our Sabbath rest.
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For the Christian, every single day is a Sabbath day. We are resting from our work, which cannot save us.
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Our works do not bring salvation. It is the finished work of Christ. So for the Christian, every day is a day of rest.
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But for the person who is not a Christian, they are continuing to try to attain righteousness by their works, and therefore they are breaking the fourth commandment every single day.
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So that is how we see the fulfillment of that command in Christ Jesus.
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And again, still important for us to have a day that we are worshiping together in the
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Lord, that we commit in service to the Lord, and we rest from our labors during the week, focused more on God on that particular day than the distractions that tend to come with any other day of the week.
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But there's not all these laws that pertain to Sabbath are no longer fitting for us to have to observe because Christ has fulfilled all of the laws of the
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Sabbath. Those were a shadow of the things to come. The substance belongs to Christ. So again, we've got two illustrations going on here in Romans chapter 14 over things that we should not be quarreling over.
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Tertiary matters, tertiary doctrines. Some cling to some aspects of this teaching because they are weak in the faith.
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And those who are more mature need to be patient with those who are less mature.
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Like for example, there's a lot of people probably don't understand that Mark chapter seven says that Jesus declared all foods clean or that through Matthew chapters 11 and 12.
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We read about how Christ fulfilled all of the laws of the Sabbath. There are people that probably don't understand that haven't been taught that yet.
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So we need to be patient with them in those in the understanding of those things as we grow and we learn in this together.
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So we have the day of the week. We've got the food dietary laws is the two examples that Paul is giving here.
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And then tomorrow we're going to go on a little bit further and get into, oh, let's see, verses eight through 12, polish off the rest of that section.
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And then next week we'll be looking at verses 13 through 23. If you want to read ahead, our great
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God, we thank you so much for sending your son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, fulfilling the law and the prophets.
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This law that we couldn't keep perfectly anyway. This law that had actually awakened sin in us and brought death to our members.
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But Christ who fulfilled this law, it is in his finished work that we can rest and we can know that he is
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God, our Savior, who showed great mercy and love to us with his sacrifice and his resurrection from the grave.
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Now, all who are in Christ Jesus have crucified the the desires of the flesh, and we've been risen again to new life.
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So continue to guide us in this new life, according to your spirit and what is written down in the instructions of your word.
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Be patient with us as we grow in maturity, according to the guidance of your spirit.
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And it's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the
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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of a church family committed to gospel teaching, and we thank you for including us in your
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Bible learning. If you would consider a gift to this ministry, please visit www .utt
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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's word when we understand the text.