Seventh-Day Adventism

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I want to invite you to have a seat and open your Bibles with me.
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I want to ask you to open your Bibles first to Acts 15 and then hold your place there and go ahead and find your spot at Galatians 1 because we're actually going to be looking at these two passages together this morning.
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We've spent several weeks going over the events which are covered in Acts 15 which we recognized as we studied as the first church council.
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It was convened in Jerusalem for the purpose of solving a very serious theological dispute.
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Men had come down from Judea to Antioch, mostly Gentiles had been converted in Antioch but the men who were coming from Judea were Jewish men and they were teaching the people in Antioch unless you are circumcised you cannot be saved.
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And as we studied over the last few weeks, not including last week because we had a visit from Scott Phillips our missionary, but in the weeks ahead of that we had studied for several weeks on the teaching of the council and how they responded to these men.
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How the Apostle Paul and Barnabas together had challenged them in Antioch, had challenged this false teaching about circumcision and then they went back to Jerusalem, went back to the teachers at Jerusalem, James and Peter and the rest, they challenged them over this teaching and as a result the council convened and the leadership came together, they determined that what these men were teaching was false, they proclaimed it as false and they provided to the church a statement of doctrine on the issue which essentially said that these men who had been teaching were essentially being publicly rebuked.
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In fact if you look at Acts 15 verse 24, this is the writing of James, the letter that came about as a result of that council, he says, Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instruction.
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You see that is a passive rebuke, it's saying these guys came to you teaching you something about circumcision and we didn't tell them to do that, we didn't give them the authority to do that, in fact what they were teaching was outside of the jurisdiction that they have of teaching, they were wrong.
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Well, this morning I want to start a mini-series.
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Now I realize we're in a bigger series, we're studying through Acts, we've been in this series for quite a while now and the series, the larger series is called Beyond Our Borders and the focus of the larger series is the fact that we need to be going out and sharing the gospel and we need to be reaching beyond the borders of our own comfort zone, we need to be reaching beyond the borders of our own city, our own nation, we need to be reaching beyond the borders, especially the walls of this church which often keep people very enclosed.
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So that's the focus of the overall series.
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But as I was studying Acts 15, as I was considering what we learn in Acts 15, I got to really convicted about the issue that what we're seeing here is something called Judaizing or the Judaizers.
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These men are proclaiming that unless you are circumcised, essentially unless you become a Jew, you can't become a Christian and this challenged me because I began to think, you know what, we have modern Judaizers throughout Christianity and while they have not used circumcision, they have found something else to put in its place and they have said, you know what, unless you do this, you cannot be saved.
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And so this mini-series is modern Judaizers, is what we're calling it.
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So for the next four weeks, we're going to step out of Beyond Our Borders, we're going to step into this series and I'm going to address four groups, four issues, and I'm going to address four groups that I think are worthy of our time and attention.
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And here's, you say, well why? Over the years, I have seen people be tempted and led astray by these groups.
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I've seen people from our own number be caught up in these groups.
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As my job as one of the elders of this church and as the preaching minister of the church is to provide protection for the flock, to preach to you not only the truths of the Gospel, but to prepare you to deal with the false Gospels which are out there.
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So that's part of what I do.
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I teach you the Gospel and I teach you how to defend and stand for the Gospel in the midst of error.
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And there has never been a time in history where error is so easily received as the modern age.
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With the advent of social media, with the advent of the internet, every fool in the world now can have a website where he proposes the most damnable heresies online and yet people laugh it up as long as it's a good looking website.
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They become Wikipedia theologians.
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That's not necessarily to make fun of Wikipedia, it does a pretty good job.
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But that's what we have become.
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We imbibe this information and we are easily led astray.
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And the ministers are more concerned with talking about health and wealth than the protection of the soul against these heresies.
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And that in and of itself is dangerous.
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So like I said, this morning I want to deal, we're going to begin this series.
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Want to begin by reading Acts 15 verse 1.
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I've already kind of given it to you but we're going to read it and then we're going to quickly go to Galatians 1 and read verses 6-9 and these will be the opening passages.
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And it is our tradition here at Sovereign Grace to stand as we read what we're going to study.
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So let us stand and we'll begin with Acts 15 verse 1.
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But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
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And now over to Galatians 1 verse 6.
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I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
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Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
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But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.
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As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word.
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Father, I pray first and foremost that you would in this time keep me from error.
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As I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error, Lord, I pray that you would keep me from that.
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I pray also, Lord, that your Word would speak to the hearts of every believer here, confront us with any error that we might have, and challenge us to repentance.
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And Lord, if there are those here who do not know the gospel, I pray the gospel be clearly proclaimed unto them that they might hear, believe, and be saved.
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And Father, ultimately throughout all of this, we pray that you would receive the glory and honor.
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In Christ's name we pray, Amen.
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In Galatians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul tells us there are people who preach a different gospel.
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But then he is very quick to make an observation.
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He says not that there really is another gospel, but there are people that teach what they call the gospel, which is really no gospel at all.
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I find this interesting because we see this a lot when we deal with the cults.
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You go and talk to a Mormon, they use the same language you do.
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They talk about the gospel, they talk about atonement, they talk about God, they talk about eternal life.
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But all of those things mean something different to a Mormon.
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Each one of those words is very different in how they understand that.
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Same goes for the Jehovah's Witnesses and others who have so distorted the gospel that they have become cultish in their behavior and cultish in their teaching.
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And today what I'm doing is I'm going to look at four groups and I want to address this from the outset.
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I could have picked 50 groups and I could have focused mostly on cult groups like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, things like that.
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But I'm focusing on four groups that aren't necessarily all teaching falsehoods, but that they have connected something to salvation that is unbiblical and unholy.
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And that ultimately leads to error.
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So I guess what I'm saying from the beginning is I am not condemning these people outright all together.
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Just be understanding of that.
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I'm condemning a false teaching which is inherent in some of these systems.
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Like today we're going to talk about Seventh-day Adventism.
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I'm not saying all Seventh-day Adventists are lost.
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What I'm saying is there is a type of teaching which is inherent in that system, which if it is allowed to be pushed to its understanding of the gospel and distort the understanding of the gospel, can lead to damnable error.
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Alright, so, because here's the four things we're going to deal with in the weeks to come.
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Seventh-day Adventism today, which really is the idea of a Seventh-day Sabbath that you must keep to be saved.
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That's the focus today.
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Next week, we're going to deal with baptismal regeneration.
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Those who teach that unless you are baptized in water, by immersion, in the name of Jesus only, by the way that's part of it.
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The Trinitarian formula does not apply, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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You must be baptized in water for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus only for you to be saved.
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You say, well who teaches that? The Historic Church of Christ, Oneness Pentecostalism.
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Several groups teach that, and we'll talk about that next week.
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Week three, we're going to deal with King James Onlyism.
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That's a huge deal.
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You must use the King James, or you cannot be saved, says some.
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It's a big deal.
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And finally, we're going to look at those who would say you are not saved unless you've spoken in a tongue.
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That's the four groups.
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And I would say within those groups there are going to be saved folks, but the theology leads to a misunderstanding of the gospel.
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And Paul says if you're preaching a gospel contrary to the one that I proclaim to you, you're preaching a false gospel.
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And if we cannot be unified in anything, we have to be unified in the gospel.
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And if we can't make anything the standard of our fellowship, it must be the gospel.
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So understand why this is so important.
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I'm not beating a hobby horse here.
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And if you're a first time visitor with us today, and you say, wow, he's just beating everybody.
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This is not the norm.
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The focus is that we would understand the gospel and understand those who would distort it and why.
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So we're going to begin with, we're going to begin today with Seventh-day Adventism.
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And just to say from the outset, there are different types of Seventh-day Adventists.
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And there are some with which we would agree, and they would be believers in justification by grace through faith alone.
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And they simply see the Seventh-day Sabbath as something that they are convicted about.
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And Paul says, hey, if a man's convicted to worship on one day, and that's the day he's convicted about, and he's convinced in his heart that we shouldn't condemn that person.
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But here's where the condemnation is the issue.
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When he makes that conviction of conscience, everyone else's conviction of conscience, and that you must do this to be saved, that's where the issue comes in.
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Not all Seventh-day Adventists do that, but there are those who do.
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And you say, well, why would you deal with the Seventh-day Adventists then? Well, there's like 18 million of them in the world.
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One of them actually was running for president.
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So I figured this was one group that we should address, but they're not the only group out there that teach the Seventh-day Sabbath requirement.
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But I do want to look at four things.
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You'll notice in your bulletin, I've given you four points that we're going to hit on each one of these groups, whether it's King James only, or whether it's the tongues, or anything.
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We're going to hit four issues.
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Number one, we're going to look at a brief history.
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Two, we're going to look at an overview of what they teach.
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Number three, we're going to look at a rebuttal of what they teach.
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And finally, a conclusion.
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Now are we going to get through all that in 45 minutes? I don't know.
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We'll try.
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We're going to begin with a brief history.
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The Seventh-day Adventist Church was born out of the Millerite movement in the early 1800s.
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The Millerites were a group that followed a man by the name of William Miller.
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William Miller believed that Jesus was going to return in 1844.
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In fact, he predicted Jesus will return in 1844.
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And then, when Christ did not return in 1844, it became known as the Great Disappointment.
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Many people left the movement, however, some reinterpreted his prophecy and the nature of the prediction, and they believed that Christ did return in 1844, just not to earth.
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They believed that Christ moved into the Holy of Holies in heaven.
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That Christ stepped down from the throne, he moved into the Holy of Holies for this purpose, to begin what was entitled Investigative Judgment.
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Here's what that means.
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In 1844, Jesus began the process of determining who and who was not eligible for heaven.
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It was an Investigative Judgment.
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He began to investigate our lives to see whether or not we are worthy of heaven.
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What's the first problem with that? Nobody's worthy of heaven, that's right.
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So, right away there's an issue.
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Jesus is looking at our merit to see if we merit heaven.
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If there's one thing the Bible teaches us, it's that we do not merit heaven.
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All of our merits are the merits of Christ.
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So, unless Jesus is investigating himself, there's a problem right at the very beginning.
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But because of that, there's no more date setting in the Seventh-day Adventist movement.
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They've said Christ can come whenever he's done investigating, is when he will return.
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One of the prominent figures of Seventh-day Adventism in the early years was a woman by the name of Ellen White.
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She was recognized as a prophetess, and her writings are considered to be, and I quote from the Adventist website, a continuing and authoritative source of truth.
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So, the writings of Ellen G.
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White become, next to Scripture, a continuing revelation from God.
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This is something that you should believe because it's from God.
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Probably her most notable false teaching was on the subject of eternal punishment.
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She rejected the notion of eternal hell, and she instead believed that the wicked, those who die outside of Christ, are simply annihilated.
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Their souls simply cease to exist.
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They're burned up.
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That's the theory of annihilationism.
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That's one of her most notable teachings, and continues this day in most Seventh-day Adventist churches.
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If you ask, do you believe in the doctrine of eternal punishment? They will say that eternal punishment is simply eternal non-existence.
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That's your punishment, that you simply go out of existence.
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So, right at the beginning, the movement was started out of eschatological date setting, and it was perpetuated on the false teachings of a false prophetess.
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Not a good start.
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Now, what do they teach? Well, along with an unbiblical view of hell and eternal punishment, White, Ellen White, focused on the issue of Saturday as the proper day for worship.
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And she claimed that she had a vision of the Ten Commandments.
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She believed that she had seen a vision from God, and she saw the Ten Commandments, and in this vision, the Fourth Commandment, the Sabbath, was a halo, was around the Fourth Commandment.
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And that told her that that particular teaching of the Ten Commandments should be risen to utmost importance.
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And she taught that worshiping any other day other than Saturday, particularly worship on Sunday, was the reception of the mark of the beast.
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If you are familiar with the mark of the beast, the term mark of the beast is from the book of Revelation.
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I'll read to you from her writings.
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This is Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, April 27th, 1911.
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It says this, If the light of truth has been presented to you, revealing the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, and showing that there is no foundation in the word of God for Sunday observance, and yet you still cling to the false Sabbath, that being Sunday, refusing to keep holy the Sabbath, which God calls My Holy Day, you receive the mark of the beast.
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So let me say this.
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You are worshiping on Sunday.
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You are here today, worshiping on Sunday.
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You have received the mark of the beast, because you are committing idolatrous worship.
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Seventh-day Adventist churches, as I said earlier, are not the only group who teach this.
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There are several groups that are pushing for a Judaized Christianity, and one man by the name of David Rogers, who writes on a website called Biblical Truth, he writes this.
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He said, The Christian church has been duped into thinking that Elohim has set up Sunday as the day for worshiping Yeshua as the Savior.
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By the way, you'll always know if you're dealing with somebody who's really pushing an Old Testament agenda, when they're so convinced that they have to use the Hebrew names of God and the Hebrew name for Christ in their language.
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You'll hear people, they're always talking about Elohim and Yeshua and these things.
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Like the guy who came up to me at the fishing hole.
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Do you know the name of God? And I said, Yahweh? And he goes, You said it right! And I said, Yes, okay.
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He was so convinced that that was the big deal.
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Just like Jehovah Witnesses believe that you have to say Jehovah, even though that's a 13th century Germanic adulteration of the Tetragrammaton.
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That is not the way you say the four-lettered name of God.
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They make it the issue when it's not.
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But anyway, he goes on.
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He said, Yahweh never did this.
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The establishment of Sunday in place of the Sabbath day of worshiping the Creator is part of the work of Satan to establish his own government on earth.
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Constantine, who was thoroughly pagan, changed the Sabbath to Sunday by official decree, and Christians have been worshiping their God on Satan's day ever since.
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I never get ceased to be amazed how much gets laid at the feet of old Constantine.
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I mean, he was not a great guy, but come on.
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He is the demon of demons for everyone who wants to find something in history to lay at the conspiratorial feet of the church.
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So again, we see not only in the Seventh-day Adventist movement, but across and within the church, or within people who would call themselves Christians, there are those who teach that unless you are worshiping on Saturday, you cannot be saved.
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Because if you worship on Sunday, you are an idolater.
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You've received the mark of the beast, and you've expressed and committed a damnable heresy.
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Right away, I ask the question, does that sound like a Judaizer to you? To me, it does.
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Right away, I say, wait a minute.
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If you take Acts 15.1, there are men who came down from Judea and said, unless you be circumcised, you cannot be saved.
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Remember, that was exactly what 15.1 says.
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Now, replace circumcision with the Seventh-day Sabbath.
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And men came down from Judea, and they said, unless you worship on Saturday, you cannot be saved.
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It's the same thing.
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It's just, you replace that, and in the weeks to come, we're going to say, unless you use the King James Bible, you can't be saved.
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For 1600 years, we didn't have the Word of God, but right in 1611, boom, God made it happen.
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So how do we respond to this? What's the rebuttal? Well, one of the clearest repudiations to this teaching that I've ever found in the Word of God comes to us from the writings of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 14.
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So I want to encourage you to turn to Romans 14.
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Romans chapter 14 and verse 5.
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I still hear Bible pages turning, so I'll give you a second to get there.
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This is important for us to see.
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In Romans 14, Paul talks about things which are ultimately left up to the conscience.
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He begins by talking about dietary restrictions, and then he goes on to talk about the day in which we worship, and he uses two examples.
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The dietary restrictions, the day in which we worship.
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Why did he choose those two things? Well, he doesn't tell us exactly why, but I'll give you my opinion.
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My opinion is why he chose those two things is those two things were exactly the two things that the Jews made the biggest issue about.
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They made the issue about what you eat and when you worship.
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And so if the Apostle Paul is trying to make an issue of the new covenant and how the new covenant has made a distinction from the old covenant, he uses two things which in the old covenant were not options.
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In the old covenant, what you ate wasn't an option.
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In the old covenant, the day that you set aside as the Sabbath wasn't an option.
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Those were assigned to you by God.
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But in the new covenant, those two things are not assigned to you by God, and the Apostle Paul makes that clear.
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He says in verse 5, 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.
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The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord.
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The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God.
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While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
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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.
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So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
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Ultimately, this is the point.
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He says some people are going to worship one particular day, while other people are going to worship on another particular day, and there are some people who are going to worship every day.
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You know, Luther used to preach every day.
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Do you know that? During the time of the Reformation, he preached every day.
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And he said that's okay too.
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You guys want to start that? I can get the elders, we can make that happen.
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Every day, every morning, we'll have church right before you all go to work.
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But he says there are going to be some who esteem one day, there are going to be some who esteem all days, and both should be fully convinced in his own mind.
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Here's the thing.
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The Apostle Paul could have ended this whole debate right here if he would have said this.
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Look, some people esteem one day, some people esteem another day, but unless you all are esteeming the Sabbath, you can't be saved.
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See, this would have been the place where he could have made this clear.
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But instead, he doesn't.
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And what is often argued from those who maintain the Sabbath is that Paul here isn't talking about the Sabbath because everyone would have already understood that already.
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He's talking about other days.
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That's reading into the text.
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That's eisegesis.
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You're having to add something that's not here.
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But just in case you think that that might be an alternative, let me take you to what he says in Colossians 2.
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Because in Colossians 2, there's really no doubt.
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He says this in Romans that we esteem one day or every day, and we should be convinced in our own mind.
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But in Colossians 2, it really becomes no question at all.
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Colossians 2, verse 16.
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Speaking on almost the exact same subject, the Apostle Paul says this, Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or in regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a what? A Sabbath.
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Verse 17 gives the answer why.
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These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
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That's the answer, folks.
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That's it.
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If somebody comes arguing that you have to worship on the Sabbath, Saturday, because that is the day of worship, we can look to them and say, but the Apostle Paul says here, you're judging me in regard to a Sabbath, and you have no right to do that.
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You're judging the eternal consequence of my soul on something the Apostle Paul says here is left up to the conscience.
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But what of the commands of the Old Testament? The Sabbath is commanded in Scripture, and we know that we don't want to pit Scripture against Scripture.
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What about those Old Testament commands which tell us that the Sabbath is holy and must be kept holy? Well, I want to say something that may be controversial.
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Hope it's not.
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Hope you can hear it with the heart from which it comes.
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We'll see.
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The Sabbath, like the dietary laws of the Mosaic Covenant, is no longer in effect.
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Now, before you get, like you want to get up and leave, because I just spoke blasphemy, I want to ask you a question.
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Would you respond to me? You don't have to say anything, but you give me one of these if you hear me.
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Are you a member of the Mosaic Covenant? No, you are not.
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In case you're wondering, you are not.
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You are not a member of the Mosaic Covenant.
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You are members of the New Covenant by faith in Jesus Christ.
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You are not a member of the Mosaic Covenant.
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And what is the purpose of the Sabbath? Well, if you want to look there or just write this down, Exodus 31.13 tells us this, You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, Above all, you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.
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Who is He speaking to? He's speaking to Israel.
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What is the covenant in view here? The Mosaic Covenant.
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What is the Sabbath for? It is a sign of the Mosaic Covenant.
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In fact, if you think about it, God uses signs for His covenants throughout the Bible.
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We see He gave Noah a rainbow as a sign of a covenant.
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He gave Abraham circumcision.
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Circumcision isn't a sign of the Mosaic Covenant.
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It's a sign of the Abrahamic Covenant.
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What's the sign of the Mosaic Covenant? According to Scripture, it is the Sabbath.
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I want to read to you from William Barak.
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He is a professor of Old Testament Studies at the Master's Seminary.
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So he is one of John MacArthur's guys.
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And this is what he writes in regard to the Sabbath.
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He says, The legal stipulation concerning the Sabbath was promulgated at Sinai, not at Creation.
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See, a lot of them, you'll hear them say, Well, it started at Creation, so that's when it became a command.
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No.
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Abraham never talks about the Sabbath.
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Isaac? When do you ever hear them talk about the Sabbath? You don't.
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You see it come in when? With the Mosaic Covenant.
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That's when you see it.
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Now, there was a seventh day.
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God rested.
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But that becomes a picture of the Sabbath day at Moses.
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But, let's go on.
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He goes on to say this.
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The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was circumcision.
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The sign of the Sinaitic Covenant, or the Mosaic Covenant, was observance of the Sabbath.
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The sign of each covenant affected the realm of the other covenants.
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The covenant regarding the land, Abrahamic Covenant, was related to the people by circumcision.
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And the covenant regarding the people, the Mosaic Covenant, was related to the land by the Sabbath.
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Thus, these two covenantal elements, the land and the people, were bound together.
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The land was for the people, the people for the land, and the Sabbath was ordained for those who were delivered out of Egypt and who were to inhabit the land of promise.
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Now, that's a long way of saying, this was for them, for that time, in that history, for a purpose.
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It identified them as God's people.
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It was a sign which identified them as God's people.
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Now, what has happened to the Mosaic Covenant since the institution of the New Covenant? Nobody wants to say it.
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Nobody wants to say it.
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What happened to the Mosaic Covenant? It has been rendered obsolete.
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Go to Hebrews with me.
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Go to Hebrews.
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Go to Hebrews 8.
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I'm going to make this make sense for you, and I hope nobody leaves here wanting to cane me on the way out.
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And it's okay if you do.
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But I'm going to make this make sense.
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Go to Hebrews 8.
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We're going to read from 6 to 13.
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Most important verse, though, is verse 13.
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So, just stick with me, because I want you to hear all of it.
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Hebrews 8.6 says this, But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old, as the covenant He mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
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What does the writer of Hebrews tell us? There's a New Covenant, and it's better than the old.
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Verse 7.
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For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
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For He finds fault with them when He says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
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For they did not continue in My covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
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For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.
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I will put My law into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
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And they shall not teach each one of his neighbors, each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.
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For I will be merciful towards their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
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And speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete.
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I didn't make that up.
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And I didn't write it.
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If you've got an issue, take it up with whoever wrote Hebrews.
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And at this point, we're not certain.
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That's going to be a hard conversation to have.
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Plus, he's dead.
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But He goes on to say this, And what is becoming obsolete is growing old and is ready to vanish away.
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That's heavy talk.
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But it's clear.
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It's hard for us to hear.
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But it's truth.
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We are in the new covenant.
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And thus, the laws of the old covenant are obsolete.
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If we're no longer bound by the law of circumcision, we are also no longer bound by the laws of the Sabbath.
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And if we can eat pork, and we can wear clothes with mixed fibers, then it stands to reason that something drastically has happened in the new covenant.
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The fact that you're here today, and you have a shirt that's probably 50% cotton and 50% polyester, maybe you're wearing all polyester pants, I don't know, whatever you're wearing, is a sign that something different happened.
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Something changed when Jesus came.
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And when He held up that bread and that cup, and He said, This is the new covenant in My blood, He was fulfilling the prophecy that was given, that God would provide a new covenant for His people.
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Now, I want to say something about all this, so I don't want to leave you confused.
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Am I advocating lawlessness? No.
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There is an eternal, moral law of God, which stands regardless of what covenant we are in.
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Whether we are members of the Abrahamic covenant, members of the Sinaitic covenant, members of the new covenant, it is wrong to murder, it is wrong to lie, it is wrong to steal, it is wrong to commit adultery.
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These are violations which are foundational in the law, and it's bound up in the simple law of love.
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The Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, that is the eternal moral law given to us in two simple principles.
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God first, others second.
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Now, some people do believe that the Sabbath is a moral law, because the Sabbath is part of the Ten Commandments.
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But here is my response to that, because if you want to send me an email, I'll go ahead and give you the response.
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It will save you some time.
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If keeping the Sabbath was a moral law, then the Apostle Paul would not have told you that it's up to your conscience, in Romans 14 and Colossians 2.
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Because he never says whether or not to murder is up to your conscience, or whether or not to commit adultery is up to your conscience, or whether or not to lie or steal is up to your conscience.
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In the end, folks, Sabbath means rest, and that's what the Sabbath is about.
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One of the things that often gets me is they make Sabbath the worship, and it's all about worship.
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Sabbath is about rest, the resting.
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So, since we're in Hebrews, turn with me to Hebrews 4.
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I want to show you something about the rest that we have.
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Hebrews 4 says, Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
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For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
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For we who have believed and enter that rest, enter, we have entered that rest, we enter that rest.
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As He has said, As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.
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For He has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all His works.
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And again, in this passage, He said, They shall not enter my rest, since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter, because of disobedience.
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Again, He appoints a day, today, saying through David so long afterwards, and the words already quoted, Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
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For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
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So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
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For whoever has entered God's rest, has also rested from His works as God did from His, let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
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That is a lot of text, so let me break it down for you.
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Here is basically what He is saying.
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The Sabbath represents rest.
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And throughout all the Old Testament, they never rested.
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Throughout all the Old Testament, Joshua never gave them rest.
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Moses never gave them rest.
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They never had this rest, because it was pointing towards something.
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It was pointing towards Christ, who ultimately is our rest.
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In Him we rest from our works, and we find our fullness in Him.
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He is our Sabbath.
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This is why Colossians 2.17 says, these were a shadow of the things to come, and their fulfillment is in Christ.
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Who is my Sabbath? My rest is my Savior.
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It is not a day.
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It is a person.
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And what that day represented was my King, in whom I find my rest.
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So, what about Sunday? I am not taking a hard right turn.
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I just want to answer this question, because somebody is going to ask.
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You know, that is how I write my sermons.
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I think, what questions are they going to ask, so I can respond.
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Because I know that these are issues that people are going to have, especially ones like this.
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Is Sunday the Sabbath now? Because that is the big question, the subject on which not all people agree, especially not all Reformed folks.
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Because some people think, yeah, we still observe the Sabbath.
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We just observe the Sabbath on Sunday.
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And this has actually been a teaching, which is pretty popular in church history.
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Sunday was the day the church gathered in the New Testament.
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It was called the Lord's Day in the New Testament.
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In fact, it was held...
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I mean, how many of you guys remember when you couldn't go to work, or couldn't do anything on Sunday? Couldn't go get something to eat.
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Couldn't go buy anything.
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All the stores were closed.
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You remember that, right? Why? Because Sunday was treated like the Sabbath day, and that it was a rest day.
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In 1924, Eric Little was supposed to run in the Olympic Games on a Sunday.
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What did he do? He wouldn't run because it was a Sunday.
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In fact, the movie Chariots of Fire is about his experience, and not wanting to run on a Sunday.
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I want to say something, a challenge.
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And I'm going to say this.
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This would go against some of the Reformed confessions, and I'm okay.
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I'm bound to Scripture, not to them.
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Sunday is the Lord's Day, but Sunday is not the Sabbath.
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It is perfectly encouraged to worship on Sunday.
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It stands in Christian history as a biblical example of the day God's people gathered, and it is the day Christ rose from the dead.
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But the laws which accompany the Sabbath are no longer enforced.
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If you light a fire today, which all of you will when you get in your car and you turn the key, you're going to kindle a fire because it's called an internal combustion engine.
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It ain't run off water.
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It starts a fire, which creates combustion, which makes it work.
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Guess what? We're not going to stone you for lighting that fire.
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If you choose to go out to eat today, I'm not going to condemn you and pull you before the church for discipline.
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And guess what? If your job requires you to work, we're not going to disfellowship you.
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None of that could be true if we were under the Old Covenant.
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All three of those things would bring about your condemnation.
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Lighting the fire, going out and letting others work on your behalf, or working yourself.
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So let me offer up a brief conclusion, then we'll pray.
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We started today talking about Seventh-day Adventists, but you see, we didn't stick with that long.
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We moved into the issue of the Sabbath as a generalized principle.
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So I want to go back and reiterate something I said at the beginning.
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I just want to reiterate it now.
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Not all Seventh-day Adventists believe that you have to keep the Sabbath to be saved.
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They're just convinced that they need to keep the Sabbath according to their conscience.
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And if that's all they're saying, they're fine.
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If they believe in justification by grace through faith alone, that's fine.
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But if they say you must keep the Sabbath to be saved, then they have gone into heresy, and that is a false gospel.
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And that's the danger that I fear, because when I look at the movement itself, the foundations are very shaky.
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It was started on false prophecies and false prophets, and now continues with a false understanding of what God expects of us.
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Ultimately, if you come to me and you say, Pastor, I want to worship on Saturdays because I'm convinced and convicted that I should worship on Saturdays.
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I would say that's fine, if that's what God...
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if you're convicted to do that.
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We don't offer Saturday worship for you, so I may want to help you find somewhere where you can go where there's solid teaching but worships on Saturday.
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If that's where you're convicted, I'm not going to condemn you for that.
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But if you come to me and say, Pastor, you don't worship on Saturday, therefore you are condemned, then you are teaching a false gospel, and I will rebuke you for that.
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It's as simple as that.
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It becomes Judaizing anytime we add something to the gospel, even something as entrenched in tradition as the Sabbath.
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Because guess what? Circumcision was just as traditional and just as entrenched.
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Every one of those men who was saying, you must be circumcised to be saved, believed it because that's what they were taught from birth.
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You have to be circumcised or you're not one of God's people.
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But it didn't make them right.
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So too, someone may come with great confidence telling you, unless you are worshiping on Saturday, you can't be saved.
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And they may be confident, but it don't make them right.
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People can be very confidently wrong.
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How is one saved? We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.
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By grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
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Our works testify to our faith, but they are not merits before God.
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The only thing that merits us before God is the work of our Savior.
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We are saved by works, but they're not ours, they're His.
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His works are what save our soul.
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And today, if you are here today and you don't know that gospel, or maybe you have been under the influence of a false gospel, I call you to repent of that and turn to Him who saves and Him alone.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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I thank You for the encouragement of the Scriptures that we are no longer bound by the laws of the Sabbath, but that we have a new covenant.
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And within this new covenant, these things which were shadows and types have been fulfilled in Christ and we find our peace and rest and hope in Him.
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Lord, I know this is a controversial message, one in which many people will be leaving today, maybe with some questions.
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I pray, Lord, that You'll help them answer those questions through the Scripture.
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And help me to help them as You would see fit.
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Lord, if there's a person here who's never heard the gospel or has been under the influence of a false gospel, Lord, that You might save their soul, is our request today.
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In Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.