One of the very worst attacks on God’s Word that Paul is responsible for is his diminishing and dismissal of the weekly Sabbath as well as the Feast Sabbaths for the “Gentiles.”
God went to great lengths in the First Testament to show how important the Sabbath Day was to Him. In fact, during the creation, God who needs no rest, separated out the seventh day just for that purpose. He blessed the day and SANCTIFIED IT according to Genesis 2:1-3:
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. 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.
To add the serious nature of God’s separating out this last day of the seven day week, he fully codified its observance in the Ten Commandments and actually spoke the Words of the Ten Commandments from the Mount to the Hebrew people. In the Commandments God identifies the day as the seventh twice while blessing and HALLOWING the day, meaning, he made the day HOLY unto Him.
Exodus 20:8-11 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 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: 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.
But the slimy liar Paul came along and single handedly decided that what mattered to God so much that He actually spoke it out loud from heaven to the Hebrew people gathered at the bottom of the mount was, in fact, just an afterthought now. This excerpt from Romans drips with the pure evil of the serpent’s tongue in this regard:
One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's (Romans 14:5-8).
Notice, too, how he diminishes God’s law with regard to foods as if God never cared about what we put in our mouths, as if the Leviticus chapter about clean and unclean foods was just so much hot air. It’s no wonder Marcion of Sinope was able to convince people in the second century that Paul preached a Jesus that could never have been the Son of the First Testament God.
Paul gets even more specific in Colossians,
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).
While he rightly states that the feast days and Sabbaths are a type and shadow of Jesus Himself, Paul still manages to diminish and demote their importance to an aside, as if they are already done away with.
Why would Paul cause the (what should be formerly) Gentiles to ignore God’s commandments when it is written that if a stranger attaches himself to Israel, there shall be one law for both (Exodus 12:49)? Aren’t Believers in Christ taking on the faith of Abraham? As Jesus said, “…Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad” (John 8:56), and as John the Baptist also said to the Pharisees and Saducees, “…And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Matthew 3:9), are the Gentile Believers not those very stones raised up? Formerly Gentile Believers are just that, former, because now they have attached themselves to the family of God which began with Abraham.
As Jesus said, “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50).
And so the followers of Jesus kept God’s Word. The very women who were among Jesus’ group would not even buy spices on the Passover Sabbath or go to care for his dead body until the weekly Sabbath was over.
“And when the (Passover) sabbath (Thursday) was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices (on Friday), that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week (Sunday), they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun” (Mark 16:1-4).
“In the end of the (weekly) sabbath (Saturday), as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week (Sunday), came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre” (Matthew 28:1).
So we see that the women who followed with Jesus and the Apostles honored both the Passover Feast Day Sabbath as well as the weekly Sabbath. Jesus clearly did not teach anything like Paul did with regard to the hallowed days of the Lord. He did not dismiss them and honored them Himself throughout His ministry.
And the fact that Jesus did not intend to end Sabbath observance after His death, burial and resurrection is proved out by His prophecy that would fulfill during the tribulation, a time period still yet to occur though seemingly very close. If Jesus intended to do away with Sabbath observance, why then would he comment about the Sabbath for a time frame nearly 2,000 years later?
“And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:19-21).
As for Paul’s diminishment of the Feast Days of the Most High God, if Jesus fulfilled their observance with his death, burial and resurrection, why then does the Book of Zechariah prophecy of the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles DURING THE MILLENIEL REIGN OF CHRIST?
Zechariah 14:16-19
And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem
shall even go up from year
to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts,
and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
And it shall be, that whoso will not come up
of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem
to worship the King, the LORD of hosts,
even upon them shall be no rain.
And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain;
there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen
that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
This shall be the punishment of Egypt,
and the punishment of all nations
that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
Once again, Jesus’ sacrifice only did away with the carnal ordinances of the law, the animal blood sacrifices, the washings, the offerings. Also, the New Covenant did away with the need for physical buildings as temples, for our bodies have been made the Temples of God where God the Father and the Son abide by the Holy Spirit (John 14). Therefore we have been made kings and priests in these temples in order to minister to God therein. Therefore, the works of the Levitical priesthood are also fulfilled and no longer required because there is not a physical tabernacle or temple in which we do the works of the priesthood.
This is all that has been fulfilled in God’s law and the rest of it we are held accountable to.
There are not two laws, one for the Jew and one for the Gentile either. Jesus told the apostles to teach go to all nations, “…Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…” (Matthew 28:20) The apostles were Jews and they were instructed to teach us the same thing they had been taught, the law of God with Jesus’ clarifications and amendments. This is why the first person accounts of Matthew and John as Apostles are SO IMPORTANT. This also means Acts 15 account that the Gentiles need only observe four things (no fornication, no eating things sacrificed to idols, no drinking/eating blood and no eating things strangled) is also WRONG and either a false representation of what happened or entirely a fiction. It is clear that Gentile Converts are supposed to abide by the same rules as the Jews who accept Jesus. As it states in the Book of Exodus, “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you” (Exodus 12:49).
God is not a relativistic God who gives different rules for different people. We are all under the same law and will be measured by the same measuring stick: God’s Word.
Paul’s diminishment and outright dismissal of the Commandments of God and what is important to Him shows that Paul was being led by devils.
We are to keep and honor God’s laws, and especially to honor the weekly Sabbath as well as His feasts as found in Leviticus 23. Jesus never did away with them, nor did He intend to do so. He honored all of the days of the Lord, including the Sabbath (though He corrected the Jews for their altering God’s intention for the Sabbath), as well as all the Feasts. Jesus Himself is our Passover Lamb, our Atonement, He is represented by the Feasts and we should gleefully honor and celebrate them. Why is it so easy for “Christians” to honor hellish days like Christmas (Saturnalia, Sol Invicta, Winter Solstice), Easter (Ishtar “goddess” of fertility), Day of the Sun Sabbath, as well as Halloween (Samhain), but they are so repulsed by the set apart Holy Days of the Lord? This is all due to Paul, the infiltrator who led many people into paganism and satanism through his evil teachings that we as a people are not held to the commandments of God.
But Jesus left a different legacy of observing God’s Word to the T, and His Apostle John furthered that message for us:
“And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” (1 John 2:3-6).
So If you break the weekly Sabbath and dishonor God by not honoring His feasts, then you are not walking as Jesus walked. You are following the teachings of Paul. This means you are (even out of ignorance) in hatred of God because and NOT LOVING HIM because you are breaking His Word. It also means you ARE NOT LOVING other people:
“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:2-3).
Paul makes it seem like if you try to observe God’s laws that you are IN SIN and UNDER A CURSE. But it’s the exact opposite. You instead walk in peace, love and joy, knowing you are living a life pleasing to God and under His High Holy Standard.
“Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 John 3:21-22).
So when it comes to the days God has blessed, sanctified and hallowed, Paul has taught you to dismiss them. Jesus and His apostles as well as the women who followed Him DID NOT DO THIS. Get right with God and keep His commandments, including those with regard to His Sabbath and Holy Days and you will find a newness of life in your walk you didn’t think could exist. Renounce Paul and his lying teachings and you will find your walk with Jesus becomes so much closer you won’t believe it.
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