Dear Friends

This Sabbath we will examine what God has done for us regarding the Sabbaths.

Mark 2:27 states that the Sabbath was made for man. However, the second part of verse says that man was not made for the Sabbath.

What does that mean? Does it mean that man is free to disregard it or work on the Sabbath?

No it does not mean that, at all.

Had that been the case then Christ would have been in respect of person when he gave Moses the Decalogue and had Moses have the man killed for gathering sticks on the Sabbath.

Make no mistake that it was Christ that ordered the death of the man in the wilderness gathering sticks on the Sabbath. Moses merely relayed the order.

In modern times the death sentence is to the Second Resurrection. If you wish to be in the First Resurrection you keep the Fourth Commandment and all ten elements of it.

You are then able to establish the right relationship with God for which the Sabbath was created. That is what the text in Mark means.

Why would God send Christ as the Angel of the Presence to bring Israel out of Egypt and establish his covenant with them and enforce the Sabbath system only to allow Christ to change the day to Sunday and bring in to Israel the festivals of the Sun and Mystery Cults not only allowing but enforcing Sunday, Easter and Christmas as the basis of worship in the world.

Why would He punish Judah and Israel for observing the Sun cults under the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth and then change His mind and allow the Church to keep these heathen festivals?

Why would He leave Judah and the Church still fighting to keep the Sabbath if all he had to do was pronounce the change in rituals through the Holy Spirit. How is God not in respect of persons in such behaviour? How does such a view not attribute sin and caprice to God and to Christ? It is logically absurd and capricious and such a view logically accuses God.

Why then, having reversed His directives to Israel and condoned the heathen sun cults, would God declare through Christ and His servants the prophets that the entire Millennial system was to be run according to the Sabbaths and New Moons (Isa. 66:23). Such a view is insane. God simply would be logically compelled to oppose such behaviour as would any logical rational human being. In the Millennium these people will die unless they keep both the Sabbaths and the New Moons. The Scriptures are very clear and they cannot be broken.

Isa.66:23-24
23] From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the LORD. [24] "And they shall go forth and look on the dead bodies of the men that have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh."

Why would God declare through Christ and the prophets that the Feast of Tabernacles would be kept at the return of the Messiah and all nations would send their representatives to Jerusalem every Feast of Tabernacles or the nations would get no rain in due season and will suffer the plagues of Egypt. They will suffer famine and disease until they repent (Zech. 14:16-19).

Zech 14:[16]
Then every one that survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of booths. [17] And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain upon them. [18] And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, then upon them shall come the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of booths. [19] This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of booths. [20] And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, "Holy to the LORD." And the pots in the house of the LORD shall be as the bowls before the altar; [21] and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the flesh of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.

The Antinomians avoid such problems of logic and reason by declaring that they will go to heaven when the Bible in fact declares the reverse as we see above and in Revelation chapters 20-22.
God is not in respect of persons. Christ follows the nature of God and is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Everyone on this planet is given the choice. You can follow the teachings of the Bible as the word of the Living God or you can do as you like and preach that the law is done away and you can worship on Sundays and on Christmas and Easter contrary to the word of God and you can persecute those who uphold the laws of God.

God has given you that free choice. However, there is a penalty that everyone who takes such a road has to pay. That penalty is that they are cut off from our people, which is the penalty for not keeping Atonement and the Passover, within which is the Lord's Supper.

If you wish to be with Christ you will also keep Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles. Those that keep the Commandments of God and the Faith and Testimony of Jesus Christ even under persecution are called the elect of God (Rev. 12:17; 14:12).

They are with Christ in the First Resurrection and they rule as kings and priests with Christ in the Millennium and go into the City of God with Christ. They are teachers and judges in the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20.

What is important to the churches of God is that they have always kept the Seventh Day Sabbath. The most dedicated of them kept the Sabbaths, New Moons and Feasts. They died rather than break faith with God.

All of the churches of God are agreed that the Seventh Day Sabbath is to be kept along with the feasts. The dispute over the last 80 years is because the Jewish Hillel system was introduced by the WCG system and is found today among the offshoots. It was not present among the churches of God except for a small band of Judaisers in Transylvania who adopted Judaism in the 1800s. The main body there did not adopt either Judaism or the Hillel Calendar and its Postponement systems.
The Churches of God that abandon the Sabbatarian system itself have abandoned the name Church of God and any pretence of the Calendar and the Sabbaths and follow the calendar and system of the Trinitarian sun cults. For example the WCG is no longer regarded as, or regards itself as a Church of God except for a few diehards or the odd group trapped by legal requirements and has dropped the name.

This period in the Last Days is one of trial for the Churches of God. The Great Apostasy of the Antinomian Gnostics is on us in increasing strength and power. It is even destroying the worship base of the Triune system and the mystery cults themselves. The Antinomians are encouraging people to refrain from baptism in the Churches of God and elsewhere and are destroying the capacity of many gullible people to enter the Body of Christ. Whereas previously they encouraged and taught infant baptism, thus preventing entry to the Body of Christ within the Trinitarian cults, they now teach that no baptism is required hence no allegiance to anything is required either, nor is any financial support by way of tithes and offerings or loyalty to any church much less the Churches of God. Some people are fooled by this because they have not really repented and the church is blessed by not being burdened by them. Some come to us needing help rather than being supporters, not that we begrudge help to anyone. God has protected us over time by not calling many Himself and not allowing many of them to be placed among us. God said through Malachi that Tithing is the sign of the repentance of the individual and is the test of the return to God (Malachi 3:6-18).

Mal.[6] "For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. [7] From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, `How shall we return?'  [8] Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, `How are we robbing thee?' In your tithes and offerings. [9] You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me; the whole nation of you. [10] Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. [11] I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. [12] Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts. [13] "Your words have been stout against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, `How have we spoken against thee?' [14] You have said, `It is vain to serve God. What is the good of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts? [15] Henceforth we deem the arrogant blessed; evildoers not only prosper but when they put God to the test they escape.'" [16] Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another; the LORD heeded and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and thought on his name.

Strangely enough those who really need help are the ones who work hard and help one another in the developing countries. Paul says he who does not work let him not eat and also he that does not provide for his family denies the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. This message in the developing nations is hard hitting and they are helping one another and God is calling them in large numbers.  

All of us are sinners and we are called to repentance and newness of life. We are called to overcome no matter what our sins are. Sin is transgression of the Laws of God (1Jn 3:4). We are to abide in him and not to sin and that is the goal of us all. We cannot enter the Kingdom of God through the Body of Christ unless we repent and are baptised and follow the laws of God including the entire Sabbath structure of the Fourth Commandment from which the Calendar is subtended through the law and the prophets. From this Commandment and its sub systems we derive the First element, which are the daily prayers. The Second element is the Weekly Sabbath. The Third element is the New Moons. The Fourth element is the Passover and Unleavened Bread, The Fifth element is the Wave Sheaf Offering, the Sixth is the Omer Count to Pentecost from the Wave Sheaf. The Seventh element is Trumpets, The Eighth is Atonement, The Ninth element Is Tabernacles and the Tenth element is The Last Great Day. These are the Sabbaths of the Lord that have been set up so that we can develop a relationship with God in fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes the Last Holy Day of Unleaveaned Bread is separated from the First holy Day and the Last Great Day is joined with Tabernacles in the lists but the Wave Sheaf Offering is never removed from the list being in Leviticus chapter 23 in its own right.  The Last Great Day is a feast in its own right also.

There is no negotiation. You either choose life or you choose death. We can call Lord! Lord! all we like but unless we do the will of our Father in heaven, who is the One True God Eloah, the Elyon and Ha Elohim, and keep His commandments and the Faith or Testimony of Jesus Christ, whom He sent, we are not part of the First Resurrection. Those who are part of the Second Resurrection are subject to the Second Death. Those who are part of the First Resurrection are not subject to the Second Death. Over them it has no power.

The Antinomians attack us as though we are the ones that are determining Scripture and unsettling the people they have duped with all these inconvenient scriptures. God wrote the Bible, through His servants the prophets, and it is God breathed. Scripture cannot be broken and the Antinomians will pay the price for their error. Let none of us be deceived by them.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General.