SERMON PREACHED

By:

Bishop Simeon B. Hall

New Covenant Baptist Church

Sunday, May 2, 2010

I call you today to four passages of scriptures;

The first is Romans 3:20

“For no person will be justified (made

Righteous, acquitted, and judged acceptable)

in His sight by observing the works prescribed

by the Law. For [the real function of] the Law is

to make men recognize and be conscious of

sin [not mere perception, but an acquaintance

with sin which works toward repentance, faith,

and holy character.”

The second is Colossians 2:16

“So let no one judge you in food or in

drink, or regarding a festival or a new

moon or Sabbaths.”

The third is Galatians 2:18

“For if I [or any others who have taught

that the observance of the Law of Moses is not

essential to being justified by God should now

by word or practice teach or intimate that it is

essential to] build up again what I tore down,

I prove myself a transgressor.”

And yet a fourth text is found in Acts 20:7

“And on the first day of the week, when we were assembled together to break bread [the Lord's Supper], Paul discoursed with them, intending to leave the next morning; and he kept on with his message until midnight.”

I want to raise in your hearing the polemical subject:

“THREE REASONS WHY WE WORSHIP ON THE LORD’S DAY”

I begin this presentation today with fear and trembling.

As the guardian of your soul, I have a sacred responsibility to feed and nurture your soul. It is my sacred duty to guard your mind and spirit from the things that might destroy both body and soul.

I am also painfully aware that satan is a master of deceit. And it is our duty to read and study the word of God so that we might be able to stand against the wicked trickeries of satan.

Another fact that motivates me to address this subject is that Scripture admonishes all pastors to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints.

Some of you don’t know what you believe, and to expose the error in the teachings of other groups might cause weak minds to have sympathies for the group you are shinning the light on.

This is a serious message today with eternal consequences.

 The main thrust of this discourse today is threefold.

1.    How are we made right with God

2.    Can we be comfortable that our practice of worshipping on the first day of the week squares with the Bible?

3.    What should be our response to those who reduce the sovereignty of Jesus Christ and replace it with Old Testament law?

How are we made right with God? By obeying the law or trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, which is it?

Secondly, can we be comfortable - that our worship on the Lord’s Day is according to God’s word.

Can we be certain that the first day of the week places us squarely in line with the First Century Church from which we claim our spiritual heritage.

Thirdly, what does the Bible say should be our attitude and response towards those who diminish the sovereignty of Jesus Christ to follow the Old Testament Law?

Let me emphasize that I do not treat what I shall say today lightly nor do I take any personal pleasure in condemning what others believe.

That being said I am also aware that as New Testament Bible believing followers of Christ we are under a divine obligation to hold true to the lofty principles of the Scriptures and we must recognize religious error and satanic heresy when we see it, regardless how nice, sincere or gentle those persons or groups seem.

If it does not square with scripture – it is of the devil and must be condemned.

Someone read Galatians 1:7-8

“Not that there is [or could be] any other

[genuine Gospel], but there are [obviously]

some who are troubling and disturbing and

bewildering you [with a different kind of

teaching which they offer as a gospel]

and want to pervert and distort the Gospel of

Christ (the Messiah) [into something which it

absolutely is not].

But even if we or an angel from heaven should

preach to you a gospel contrary to and different

from that which we preached to you, let him be

accursed (anathema, devoted to destruction,

doomed to eternal punishment)!”

My dear family in Christ, the whole thrust of the New Testament is that we are made righteous not by the law, but by faith – repentance in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

What makes a man righteous in the sight of God?

Or better yet, how can a Holy God look at and declare a repentant sinner as righteous? Those in the Seventh Day Adventist or Sabbatariarist, say He has to obey all the commandments.

But a rich young man came to Jesus and said, “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus cynically stated obey the law – the young man responded all these – he did not say some of these, but all these, have I kept from my youth up. The young man had carried out the law and the word all in this passage did not merely mean all the 10 Commandments. It also meant all their dietary laws; such as not eating certain meats or their health laws such as not touching dead things or their laws on ethnicity, such as the Jews having nothing to do with the Samaritans.

The young law keeper said, all these – if he were a Pharisee he would have the 10 Commandments in addition to another 350  other laws.

If he were a Sadducee he would have the 10 Commandments added to another 350 laws, but He said all these have I kept since I was a youth – yet his religion had left him dry, empty, searching and without an intimate and personal relationship with God.

Old Testament Laws without a New Testament Christ leads to modern day error and spiritual emptiness and brokenness.

Listen to me, people, all the law was a schoolmaster, a shadow of things to come.

And one of the greatest truths that I have discovered is that you cannot find Jesus anywhere in the Ten Commandments.

Each commandment given, leaves room for a personal relationship with a living Savior. Only those who have Christ can fulfill the true meaning of the law.

The tragedy of Seventh Day Adventists teaching is that it places law above grace; work above God’s free gift. But worse yet. Seventh Day Adventism teachings places fulfillment of the law above the efficacy of the finished work of Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters that is heresy.

When New Covenant baptizes a convert we baptize them into the Kingdom of God. This is the practice of most evangelical Christian churches – after one is baptized into the Kingdom of God they are received into the local church.

According the Seventh Day Adventists Church manual – at baptism the candidates are asked:

“Do you believe that the Seventh Day Adventist

is the remnant church in Bible Prophecy?”

This is the foundation of baptism for them. In most traditional New Testament Evangelical Churches we are baptized into His Kingdom – we are fellowshipped into His church.

In other words, no church of any name precedes His Kingdom, if you are truly saved you might get thrown out of a local church, but you can never be thrown out of the Kingdom if you truly know the King.

People in the Seventh Day Adventist say to worship on a Sunday is to observe worship to the sun god.

The name “sun day” is of pagan origin and that is true.

But all the days of the week have their origin in Roman and Greek Mythology the word SUNDAY – Latin it is “dies sulis” – “sun’s day.”

In Latin, it is Dominica = The Day of God.

In French it is Diminche.

In Dutch it is Non-dag.

All of these mean sun-day – the day of the sun god.

All the days of the week were named after famous deities, even Saturday was named after Saturn and it is an interesting twist to how the Romans came up with this name for Saturday.

The God Saturn ruled over the agricultural farm lands of that period. The people believed that if they pleased Saturn with their sacrifices, Saturn would be kind to them and their crops.

They said if they named a planet and a day after him the god Saturn would be pleased they named a planet and a day after this god.

They called the planet Saturn and the day Saturn Dies – in English that day in Saturday.

We worship together on the Lord’s Day because the early church recognized that the resurrection had become the pivotal point where we all by faith must meet Christ. By His resurrection Mt. Calvary had replaced Mt. Sinai.

When Jesus was on Mt. Hermon two of the Old Testament most notable and distinguished personalities appeared speaking to Jesus. Elijah and Moses representing the law and the Prophets.

Peter suggested we build:

Three tabernacles to worship all of them.

A voice came from heaven, thundering God’s progressive revelation – told Peter - Peter you have got to keep up with what God is doing – He no longer speaks prophetically through Elijah nor does He speaks legally through Moses, but this is my beloved Son hear ye Him.

Brothers and sisters it’s wrong and dangerous to be stuck at Sinai when God’s latest and fullest revelation is in a tomb in a garden.

If you stick with the Jewish Law then according to Deuteronomy 25:11-12, if a woman tried to help her husband in a fight and she reached out and grasp the private parts of her husband’s opponent – her hands were to be cut off.

If you stick to the Jewish Old Testament Laws, according to the law no woman with her monthly period could come to worship.

According to Deuteronomy 23:2, no bastard could come into the church.

The law said no child born out of wedlock could come to church – not only he, but he nor his children’s children.

Before the crucifixion Jesus went and taught on the Jewish Sabbath.

He said He was Lord of the Sabbath – Matthew 12:8. But after His resurrection each time He appeared to His disciples He appeared on the first day of the week.

Someone read John 20: 1 & 19

“The first day of the week cometh Mary

Magdalene early, when it was yet dark,

unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken

away from the sepulchre.

Then the same day at evening, being the first day

of the week, when the doors were shut where

the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews,

came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto

them, Peace be unto you.”

John 20:26

“And after eight days again his disciples were

within, and Thomas with them: then came

Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the

midst, and said, Peace be unto you.”

The overwhelming weight of scripture clearly shows that the Apostolic Church was meeting on what they call the Lord’s Day or the first day of the week.

Some three hundred years before Constantine gave Sunday worship national legal sanction they were meeting, but to say that Constantine started Sunday worship is to show a mishandling of historical truth.

The Apostle Paul who named himself an Aristocratic Jew of no mean standing – but it was Paul who theologized that those who held on to the law for their salvation were eternally lost – listen to him.

Read Galatians 3:10: “for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse.”

It was this same Paul who sanctioned the Lord’s Day worship when he was told to collect the offering on the first day of the week – Read 1 Corinthians 16:1-2

“Now concerning the collection for the saints,

as I have given order to the churches of Galatia,

even so do ye.

                Upon the first day of the week let every one of you

lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him,

that there be no gatherings when I come.”

Thus the authority, the importance of the liturgy of worship was all given.

Up until that time they called the Christian Sabbath the first day of the week.

It was not until the end of the Book of The Revelation that we get the name the “Lord’s Day” and all these, almost 400 years before Constantine.

We worship on Sunday – we worship on the first day because by His resurrection, Christ became our High Priest – we worship on the Lord’s Day because what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh – God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh.

We worship on the Lord’s Day because it was a regular practice of the early church.

We worship on the Lord’s Day because Paul’s writings and the writings of all the saints are held more sacred than those of Ellen G. White – go ahead look her up. Go ahead – check her out, October 26, 1827 to January 16, 1915.

Find out what happened to her as a child that was to affect her the rest of her life.

Let history tell you how she dabbled in the Masonic Lodge and mixed the Bible with Free Masonry.

Go read it and let history speak, telling you how she predicted the “advent” of Christ second return at least three different times and died brokenhearted that Christ had not come according to her projections.

Brothers and sisters do not think this is just me mouthing off – historical information.

Let no man judge you as to food or regarding public holidays or Sabbath.

To hold onto the mosaic law as a means to God is to negate what God has done in Jesus Christ.

The Jews to this day deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They still observe the Jewish Sabbath.

Why is all of this important –it is of eternal importance because anything or anyone or any organization that places Jesus Christ second to any teaching – any system of beliefs or any organization is unchristian and must be avoided with all your life.

Scripture never said in the beginning was the law – it says in the beginning was the word.

If you try to fulfill the law you will never do so and even if you did, your best is like fitly rags.

Thank God for the law – but we would be lost today were it left to the law.

A concluding word is we should treat our Lord’s Day as others treat their Old Testament Sabbath – worship, rest and family are the new way of honoring the Christian Lord’s Day.

We who honor Christ as our Lord dishonor Him by what we do with the Lord’s Day- the Christian Lord’s Day should be a day for worship, rest and family. Regulate your life so that we do not help the world dishonor the Lord’s Day.

Fix your life so that you don’t have to fly to Miami to shop in stores doing business with people who could care less about you or your Jesus. Some of you who have to work on the Lord’s Day should make it a matter of prayer, ask God to to lose you from the bondage of working on Sunday to be free to come together with the saints of God.

Give the Lord’s Day the sanctity it deserves - you are not going to do well if you treat every day the same.

Why do I worship on this first day rather than the Jewish Sabbath?

Why do we come together to raise a praise-shout on resurrection day rather than the Jewish Sabbath?

We practice our collective worship because we believe that on this special day, best named the Lord’s Day – God the Father, raised His only begotten Son from the grave and it was the death and resurrection that satisfied the commandments and brought about a new day and a new dispensation.

It was the resurrection that sealed the deepest level of divine human relationship.

We worship on the Lord’s Day because scripture clearly shows that it was the practice of the early apostolic church to come together and break bread and reminisce about the risen Lord.

I worship on the Lord’s Day because I believe Paul was right when he wrote no persons is justified or declared righteous to stand before a Holy God by observing the works of the law because the mosaic law as a teacher – a shadow of things to come.

We worship on the Lord’s Day, Resurrection Sunday because the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

We worship on the Lord’s Day – Resurrection Sunday, because somewhere I read that if you are guided by the Holy Spirit you are not subject to the law.

We worship on the Lord’s Day, because John, out there on the rocky barren desolate plains of Patmos declared I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day. It is true that you can be in the spirit on any day – but when we come together and remember Him – something happen.

We come together on the first day of the week because Jesus Himself is the end of the law.

I believe that our worship on the Lord’s Day is authentic because St. Paul is more trustworthy than the works of Ellen G. White or any other visionary.

I worship on this day because I am free from the law; my new freedom in Christ gives me the latitude to worship any day – anywhere and under all circumstances - I offer you God’s grace come 2:30 a.m.

Some people are trying to please Almighty God with their good works that places them under a curse – this message is to set hundreds of people free.

I am going to ask those with business plant a seed in this message to help those under a curse to be set free.

If you own a business come give something special – individuals come!