Tishrei 2, 5771

We are in the second day of Yom Teruah or Rosh HaShanah as it is most commenly known. L'Shana Tovah to anyone who reads this. May this new year bring blessings of health, prosperity, happiness and peace to your house.

So much going on in my head.....knowing these are the days to deal with the things that are keeping me bound. I feel much remorse that I have not blogged more but it is one of those things I have to pray and seek our Elohim about. I have to be in a place of seeking Him to show me what He would have me say. I also have to get my mind situated on things that are truly inportant instead of the things off the world.

The last time I wrote we were just entering into the Forty Days of Teshuvah..now we are in the Ten Days of Awe. I have prayed so much....cried so much about making changes in my life. In these days it feels as though a weight is upon my back....I wonder if that is what people feel when they say a monkey in on their back?

Wow, I just looked it up....I truly do feel it......
"Monkeys" are worries, regrets, anger and guilt that never keep quiet and refuse to sit still. They are born from the more than 50,000 thoughts each of us think each day, largely about things we cannot control, do not wish to see happen, won’t have time to experience or can’t let go. When it comes to mind and spirit self-improvement, monkeys are what hold us back from thinking clearly, reaching our goals and feeling more peaceful.



Yep....I got a monkey on my back..only mine feels more like a gorilla! It is regrets, worries and guilt. And anger! Anger at myself because I have not been doing the things I should have and it had caused a whole domino effect in my life and the lives of those around me. This is the time to get it out...to seek Him...to LET GO AND LET GOD!

The Ten Days of Awe are also broken down into Jacob's Trouble. This is the seven days between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur and it represents the seven years of Tribulation that will come upon the earth....soon.

If you do not observe our Elohim's Feasts but feel such a tugging inside...maybe even what seems to be depresion...it probably is HIm tugging at you. I used to...for years I would get depressed around this time of year but did not put it all together until I came into the Jewish Roots of my faith. And then I realized I was being brought into a place of repentance..of crying out..even for the world around me because this is His Times and Seasons...it is for the whole world..not just the Jewish people. Yes, the WHOLE WORLD is being judged..not just 'religious' people. I pray you will seek Him....pray about the things that are bothering you...that are on your mind....even on your back. Repent....make amends with those around you if you feel it is necessary but most of all seek forgiveness from our Elohim. YHVH is ready to forgive.

One thing that I truly believe is a monkey on a lot of backs is not observing His Sabbath and keeping it holy...set apart. If you are among the throngs who say Sun day is your Sabbath you would do well to pray and seek guidence about this. Our Elohim commanded us to keep His Sabbath..the Seventh Day..and He has NEVER changed His mind.

The following is something that will give you knowledge..it is truth and I pray you have eyes to see and ears to hear. In other words...do not be blind to truth...seek understanding.

This evening at sunset is the Sabbath of our Elohim...it is Shabbat. So I say to you....Shabbat Shalom!


Modern and Historic Statements about the Sabbath

American Congregationalist
"The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament." Dr. Layman Abbot, Christian Union, June 26, 1890

Anglican
"And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day... The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the Church, has enjoined it." Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, pp. 334, 336

Baptist
"There was and is a command to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will however be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, where can the record of such a transaction be found: Not in the New Testament — absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week." Dr. E. T. Hiscox, Baptist Manual

"To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years [of] discussion with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question, discussing it in some of its various aspects, freeing it from its false [Jewish traditional] glosses, never alluded to any transference of the day; also, that during the forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated. Nor, so far as we know, did the Spirit, which was given to bring to their remembrance all things whatsoever that He had said unto them, deal with this question. Nor yet did the inspired apostles, in preaching the gospel, founding churches, counseling and instructing those founded, discuss or approach the subject.
Of course I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of Paganism, and christened with the name of the sun-god, then adopted and sanctified by the Papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism." Dr. E. T. Hiscox, report of his sermon at the Baptist Minister's Convention, New York Examiner, November 16, 1893

"The Scriptures nowhere call the first day of the week the Sabbath. . .There is no Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of course, any Scriptural obligation." The Watchman

"There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance." William Owen Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day, p. 49

"There is nothing in Scripture that requires us to keep Sunday rather than Saturday as a holy day." Harold Lindsell, Christianity Today, November 5, 1976

Brethren
"With the views of the law and the Sabbath we once held ... and which are still held by perhaps the great majority of the most earnest Christians, we confess that we could not answer Adventists. What is more, neither before nor since have I heard or read what would conclusively answer an Adventist in his Scriptural contention that the Seventh day is the Sabbath. It is not 'one day in seven' as some put it, but 'the seventh day according to the commandment.'" Words of Truth and Grace, p. 281

Catholic
"It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church." Priest Brady, in an address reported in the Elizabeth, NJ News on March 18, 1903

"Protestants ... accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change... But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that ... in observing Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the Church, the pope." Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950

"Of course these two old quotations are exactly correct. The Catholic Church designated Sunday as the day for corporate worship and gets full credit — or blame — for the change." This Rock, The Magazine of Catholic Apologetics and Evangelization, p. 8, June 1997

Which is the Sabbath day? Saturday is the Sabbath day. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday." Rev. Peter Geiermann C.S.S.R., The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50

"Must not a sensible Protestant doubt seriously, when he finds that even the Bible is not followed as a rule by his co-religionists? Surely, when he sees them baptize infants, abrogate the Jewish Sabbath, and observe Sunday for which there is no Scriptural authority; when he finds them neglect to wash one another's feet, which is expressly commanded, and eat blood and things strangled, which are expressly prohibited in Scripture. He must doubt, if he think at all. ... Should not the Protestant doubt when he finds that he himself holds tradition as a guide? Yes, if he would but reflect that he has nothing but Catholic tradition for keeping the Sunday holy." Controversial Catechism, Stephen Keenan, New Edition, revised by Rev. George Cormack, published in London by Burns & Oates, Limited - New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benzinger Brothers, 1896, pp. 6-7

"The Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third [sic] Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's Day. The Council of Trent condemns those who deny that the Ten Commandments are binding on Christians." The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Commandments of God", Volume IV, 1908, Robert Appleton Company

"The [Roman Catholic] Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant, claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh-day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant." The Catholic Universe Bulletin, August 14, 1942, p. 4

"All of us believe many things in regard to religion that we do not find in the Bible. For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day that is the seventh day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the Church outside the Bible." The Catholic Virginian, "To Tell You The Truth," Vol. 22, No. 49 (Oct. 3, 1947)

"... you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." The Faith of Our Fathers, James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 88th edition, p. 89. Originally published in 1876

"Deny the authority of the Church and you have no adequate or reasonable explanation or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third - Protestant Fourth - Commandment of God... The Church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact." Catholic Record, September 1, 1923

"Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. 'The Day of the Lord' was chosen, not from any directions noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church's sense of its own power. The day of resurrection, the day of Pentecost, fifty days later, came on the first day of the week. So this would be the new Sabbath. People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become Seventh Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy." Sentinel, Saint Catherine Catholic Church, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995

"If Protestants would follow the Bible, they would worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church." Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a letter dated February 10, 1920

"The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church." Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today, p. 213

"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. 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 reverent obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church." Priest Thomas Enright, C.S.S.R., February 18, 1884, The American Sentinel, a New York Roman Catholic journal in June 1893, p. 173

"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters." C. F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons, in answer to a letter regarding the change of the Sabbath, November 11, 1895

"Tradition, not Scripture, is the rock on which the church of Jesus Christ is built." Adrien Nampon, Catholic Doctrine, the Council of Trent, p. 157

"The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even divine law. The pope can modify divine law, since his power is not of man, but of God, and he acts a vicegerent of God upon earth." Lucius Ferraris, "Prompta Bibliotheca", Papa, II, Vol. VI, p. 29

"The Sun was a foremost god with heathendom. There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of Justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said, to 'Keep that old pagan name [Sunday]. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified.' And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus." William Gildea, Doctor of Divinity, The Catholic World, March, 1894, p. 809

"The retention of the old pagan name of Dies Solis, for Sunday is, in a great measure, owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects - pagan and Christian alike - as the 'venerable' day of the sun."" Arthur P. Stanley, History of the Eastern Church, p. 184

"Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holydays? Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church." Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine (1833 approbation), p.58 (Also Manual of Christian Doctrine, ed. by Daniel Ferris [1916 ed.], p.67)

"Sunday is a Catholic institution, and... can be defended only on Catholic principles.... From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first." Catholic Press, August 25, 1900

"The Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday. The Church altered the observance of the Sabbath to the observance of Sunday. Protestants must be rather puzzled by the keeping of Sunday when God distinctly said, 'Keep holy the Sabbath Day.' The word Sunday does not come anywhere in the Bible, so, without knowing it they are obeying the authority of the Catholic Church." Canon Cafferata, The Catechism Explained, p. 89

"Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible." John Cardinal Gibbons, The Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893

Church Of Christ
"But we do not find any direct command from God, or instruction from the risen Christ, or admonition from the early apostles, that the first day is to be substituted for the seventh day Sabbath. Let us be clear on this point. Though to the Christian that day, the first day of the week is the most memorable of all days ... there is no command or warrant in the New Testament for observing it as a holy day. The Roman Church selected the first day of the week in honor of the resurrection of Christ. ..." Bible Standard, May, 1916, Auckland, New Zealand

"If the fourth command is binding upon us Gentiles by all means keep it. But let those who demand a strict observance of the Sabbath remember that the seventh day is the only Sabbath day commanded, and God never repealed that command. If you would keep the Sabbath, keep it; but Sunday is not the Sabbath. The argument of the 'Seventh Day Adventists' is on one point unassailable. It is the Seventh day not the first day that the command refers to." G. Alridge, Editor, The Bible Standard, April, 1916
"There is no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day."-DR. D. H. Lucas, Christian Oracle, Jan. 23, 1890

"The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath. There never was any change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change." First-Day Observance, pp 17,19

"It is clearly proved that the pastors of the churches have struck out one of God's ten words, which, not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation, are the most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality." Alexander Campbell, Debate With Purcell, page 214

"I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles of heaven that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room of it." Alexander Campbell, Washington Reporter, October 8, 1821

Church of England
"Many people think that Sunday is the Sabbath. But neither in the New Testament nor in the early church is there anything to suggest that we have any right to transfer the observance of the seventh day of the week to the first. The Sabbath was and is Saturday and not Sunday, and if it were binding on us then we should observe it on that day, and on no other." Rev. Lionel Beere, All-Saints Church, Ponsonby, N.Z. Church and People, September 1, 1947

"Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. That is Saturday." P. Carrington, Archbishop of Quebec, Oct. 27, 1949

"The observance of the first instead of the seventh day rests on the testimony of the church, and the church alone." Hobart Church News

"Where are we told in Scripture that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day. The reason why we keep the first day holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many things, not because the Bible, but because the Church, has enjoined them." Rev. Isaac Williams, Sermon on Catechism, p. 334

"The seventh day, the commandment says, is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. No kind of arithmetic, no kind of almanac, can make seven equal one, or the seventh mean the first, or Saturday mean Sunday. ... The fact is that we are all Sabbath breakers, every one of us." Rev. Geo. Hodges

"Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to His apostles." Sir William Domville, Examination of the Six Texts, pp. 6,7 (Supplement)

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about ab­staining from work on Sunday. The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday." Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments, pp. 52,63,65

"The Lord's day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath.... The Lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because for almost three hundred years together they kept that day which was in that commandment.... The primitive Christians did all manner of works upon the Lord's day, even in times of persecution, when they are the strictest observers of all the divine commandments; but in this they knew there was none." Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, Part I, Book II, Chap. 2, Rule 6. Sec. 51,59

"Merely to denounce the tendency to secularize Sunday is as futile as it is easy. What we want is to find some principle, to which as Christians we can appeal, and on which we can base both our conduct and our advice. We turn to the New Testament, and we look in vain for any authoritative rule. There is no recorded word of Christ, there is no word of any of the apostles, which tells how we should keep Sunday, or indeed that we should keep it at all. It is disappointing, for it would make our task much easier if we could point to a definite rule, which left us no option but simple obedience or disobedience.... There is no rule for Sunday observance, either in Scripture or history." Dr. Stephen, Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W., in an address reported in the Newcastle Morning Herald, May 14, 1924

Congregational
"The Christian Sabbath' [Sunday] is not in the Scripture, and was not by the primitive [early Christian] church called the Sabbath." Timothy Dwight, Theology, sermon 107, 1818 ed., Vol. IV, p49 (Dwight was president of Yale University from 1795-1817)

"It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day." Buck's Theological Dictionary p. 403

"The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament." Dr. Lyman Abbott, Christian Union, Jan. 18, 1882

Episcopalian
"We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church of Christ." Bishop Symour, Why We keep Sunday
"The Bible commandment says on the seventh-day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday." Phillip Carrington, quoted in Toronto Daily Star, October 26, 1949

Lutheran
"The observance of the Lord's Day (Sunday) is founded not on any command of God, but on the authority of the Church." Augsburg Confession of Faith

"They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it appears, neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, say they, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments." Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 28, par. 9

"For up to this day mankind has absolutely trifled with the original and most special revelation of the Holy God, the ten words written upon the tables of the Law from Sinai." Crown Theological Library, p. 178

"The Christians in the ancient church very soon distinguished the first day of the week, Sunday; however, not as a Sabbath, but as an assembly day of the church, to study the Word of God together, and to celebrate the ordinances one with another: without a shadow of doubt, this took place as early as the first part of the second century." Bishop Grimelund, History of the Sabbath, p. 60

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance." Augustus Neander, History of the Christian Religion and Church, Vol. 1, p. 186

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel .... These churches err in their teaching, for scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect" John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday, pp. 15,16

Methodist
"No Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral." Methodist Church Discipline, (1904), p. 23

"It is true that there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for the keeping of the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But, from His own words, we see that He came for no such purpose. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath base it only on a supposition." Amos Binney, Theological Compendium, p. 180-181

"The Sabbath instituted in the beginning, and confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets, has never been abrogated. A part of the moral law, not a jot or a tittle of its sanctity has been taken away." Bishops Pastoral

Moody Bible Institute
"The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?" D.L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting, p. 47

"I honestly believe that this commandment [the fourth, or Sabbath commandment] is just as binding today as it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing to set it aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was-in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age.' Id., p. 46

Presbyterian
"The Christian Sabbath (Sunday) is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive church called the Sabbath." Dwight's Theology, Vol. 14, p. 401

"A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matthew 24:20.... Yet it is plainly implied in these words of the Lord that even then Christians were bound to strict observation of the Sabbath." Works of Jonathon Edwards, Vol. 4, p. 621.

"We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law; for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must therefore be as unchangeable as the justice of God, which it embraced, is constant and uniform." John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels, Vol. 1, page 277

"God instituted the Sabbath at the creation of man, setting apart the seventh day for the purpose, and imposed its observance as a universal and perpetual moral obligation upon the race." American Presbyterian Board of Publication, Tract No. 175

"The observance of the seventh-day Sabbath did not cease till it was abolished after the [Roman] empire became Christian," American Presbyterian Board of Publication, Tract No. 118

"The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard to the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the gospel in any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation." Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. 19, Art. 5

"The Sabbath is a part of the Decalogue-the Ten Commandments. This alone for ever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution ... Until, therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand ... The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath." T.C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, pp. 474,475

Southern Baptist
"The sacred name of the seventh day is Sabbath. This fact is too clear to require argument. Not once did the disciples apply the Sabbath law to the first day of the week, — that folly was left for a later age, nor did they pretend that the first day supplanted the seventh." Joseph Hudson Taylor, The Sabbatic Question, pp. 14-17,41

"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God.... But when we keep the first four commandments, we are likely to keep the other six. . . . The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought.... The six days of labor and the rest on the Sabbath are to be maintained as a witness to God's toil and rest in the creation.... No one of the ten words is of merely racial significance.... The Sabbath was established originally (long before Moses) in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in commemoration of God's rest after the six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam." Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, August 15, 1937.