The Truth of God or The False Teachings of Babylon
by Elijah Rodgers
Truth of God’s Sabbath
From the beginning, before sin entered the world, God set apart a day for rest. Genesis 2:1-3 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” For six literal days God created the heavens and the earth; on the seventh day He rested. On this day He blessed and sanctified.
In His moral law, the Ten Commandments, God tells us to remember this rest day. Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Obedience to God’s command is still important today. (Read Romans 3:31, John 14:15, Revelation 14:12.)
Jesus while upon earth kept the Sabbath. (Luke 4:16) He even declares Himself the Lord of the Sabbath. Mark 2:28 says, “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.” He would not declare Himself the Lord of the Sabbath if He planned to soon change it.
Even after Christ's death and resurrection the apostles and the early Christians including the Gentiles also worshiped on the seventh-day sabbath. (Acts 13:42-44)
God Himself “blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” and nowhere in the Bible does He sanctify another day. He neither gave the apostles authority to change the Sabbath. Rather Jesus said, concerning the flight of the Christians from the city of Jerusalem before its destruction, “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:” Matthew 24:20. Jesus revealed that the Sabbath was still valid many years after His death, burial, and resurrection. The seventh day which is the Sabbath is the truth revealed by God in His Holy Word.
False teaching of Babylon
So, why then do many people worship on the first day? Jesus warned the Christian church of false teachers that were to come into the church. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.” Matthew 7:15; Matthew 24:11.
Peter and Paul under inspiration also warned the church, “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” 2 Peter 2:1-3. “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” Acts 20:29-30. These false teachers were to come as wolves in sheep' clothing “speaking perverse things” bringing into the church “damnable heresies”. They spoke lies to please a sin-loving people for the sake of gain. And Paul, speaking of the “falling away” said in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, “...the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.”
These predictions were quickly fulfilled. Over time there were compromises with the pagans and many of their practices were brought in the church. The pagan practice of image worship began to come into the church, Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ was adored and called “the Queen of Heaven”, the saints were venerated, and many images of them were made. The Bible tells us in the second commandment found in Exodus 20:4,5, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them...” The errors of paganism came in quietly at first but then became bold in its work of deception and developed to become what is known as the Catholic Church today.
Among the errors of paganism that came into the church was the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day (Saturday), the day which God had sanctified from the beginning of Creation, to the first day, Sunday. For the pagans, this day was known as the “venerable day of the Sun.”
This change did not come suddenly. The question was once asked, “Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?” the answer was given, “We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336) transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” - The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, by Peter Geiermann, p. 50 The church went against what God said in the Bible. Where was the Biblical evidence to support their command? A priest of the Catholic church said, “There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’ The Catholic Church says: ‘No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.’ And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church” - Priest Thomas Enright, CSSR, President of Redemptorist College, Kansas City, Missouri, in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, and printed in the American Sentinel, June 1883, a New York Roman Catholic Journal.
Did God sanction man to transfer His day of rest from the seventh day to the first day? Absolutely not. Nowhere in the Bible can we see a change in the direct command from God, “But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God” “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it”. Exodus 20:10; Genesis 2:3. God never gave such a blessing upon any other day of the week. All the days of the week are good, but the Sabbath was blessed and sanctified by God as a day that sets it apart from all the others. Man has no power to change what God has already commanded.
But this perversion of the scriptures was only what had been prophesied in the book of Daniel. “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” Daniel 7:25. The time that the “mystery of iniquity” thought to change was the seventh-day sabbath; the time God has given the world since the beginning. They also thought to change the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, taking out the second commandment, and splitting the tenth commandment into two. This is what man thought to do, and when people obey man rather than God, it reveals who they worship.
The Bible reveals the cause of all the trouble on the earth in Isaiah 24:4,5, “The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. 5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” We see evil is coming upon the earth because the majority of the world is trampling over God’s Law, despising His Holy Scriptures, changed the ordinance, and broken the everlasting covenant. Ordinance in the Hebrew definition means a “set time”. What set time is this? This is beyond doubt referring to the fourth commandment of God's Law to “remember” the seventh-day sabbath. The world has forgotten and trampled upon the Sabbath which God said: “remember”.
The keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath as God commanded, is no small matter! It goes down to, are we going to do what men say, or follow God and the instructions He gives us in the Bible which is “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17. What day will you choose? Will we obey God or man? The Bible says, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:20.
In the days which Jesus walked this earth, many people of that time were teaching instead of what God said, the commandments and traditions of men. They held a tradition of washing pots, cups, and other purification ceremonies, when their heart was full of sin and wickedness, plotting to kill the long promised Messiah. Jesus made it very plain to them in Mark 7:7,8, “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.” Jesus revealed that their worship was vain.
But are many people doing the same today teaching the commandments and traditions of men instead of the Bible?It is widely taught that at the cross Jesus did away with His law, the Ten Commandments. But what does the Bible teach? Jesus says in Matthew 5:17-19, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus clearly revealed that he came not to destroy His moral law, and further He taught that those that teach men to break one of the commandments which they see as the least, will by God be called the least. Also, Romans 3:31 says, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”
The Bible reveals clearly that God did not destroy His law. According to Romans 3:31, Christ at the cross established His law. And Jesus tells us to think not that he has come to destroy His law. Romans 13:9,10 “For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” This passage of scriptures, clearly pointing back to the Ten Commandments, reveals that God's law is a law of love.
So it goes contrary to the teaching of the Bible to believe that God has done away with His law, when Jesus clearly says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law”.
The Bible reveals that the seventh day, Saturday, is the true sabbath. Nowhere in the Bible did Jesus change the sabbath from the seventh day to the first day. If we believe in the Bible, and the Bible alone as the source of doctrine we will keep the seventh-day Sabbath as the Bible teaches.
The Truth of What Happens After Death
It is also widely taught today that humans have an immortal soul that continues to live and have consciousness after a persons death. What does the Bible teach about this? Ecclesiastes 9:5,6 says, “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” Psalms 146:4 “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” According to the Bible, the dead rest in peace R.I.P. in their graves.
The Bible reveals that after death, their breath goes back to God, and they return to the dust. “The dead know not anything”. Jesus compares death to a sleep. John 11:11-14 “These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. 12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. 13 Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. 14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.”
According to the Bible, the dead do not go directly to Heaven, or hell after death as some bodiless ghost. Even Jesus did not go directly to Heaven after His death on the cross on that Friday. When Jesus rose from the dead early on the first day of the week, when Mary came to the tomb, “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” John 20:17. The Bible is abundantly clear on this matter.
At the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Bible reveals that there will be a resurrection of all the “dead in Christ”. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” This is the hope! “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
The Truth of Hellfire
It is also widely taught that the wicked will burn throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.
But what does the Bible say concerning this? Malachi 4:1-3 “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.” Hebrews 10:27 “But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” Isaiah 47:14 “Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.” “
The wicked will be totally burned up and become ashes as stubble. They will not have everlasting life in sin even in hell. The Lord will “leave them neither root nor branch”, and they will receive the wages of sin – death.
What does Jesus call this fire? Matthew 25:41 “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” Jesus calls this fire “everlasting fire”. Is “everlasting fire” meaning that the people will be burning forever through the ceaseless ages of eternity?
Did you know that Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them were burned with “eternal fire”? Jude 1:7 “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Sodom and Gomorrha and the “cities about them” were destroyed with “eternal fire” because of their wickedness. Sodom Gormorrha is not burning now, but was brought “into ashes”.
This “eternal fire” brings about everlasting destruction. Sodom and Gomorrha have been eternally destroyed, so the wicked will be destroyed with everlasting fire that will lead to eternal destruction. They will receive the everlasting fire that is not eternal in time but will lead to eternal destruction.
You Choose – The Truth of God or the False Teachings of Babylon
This is plainly what the Bible says. Will we believe the truth of the Bible as your doctrine or follow the ideas and commandments and traditions of men? Jesus says in, John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”