Jesus said: Mt:15:3: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" It is not acceptable to God for men and women to create their own commandments, to change God's commandments.
If you are a PROTESTANT, you need to know something. Protestants have always kept the true Sabbath, which is the 7th day. God said that was the Sabbath.
WHAT MARTIN LUTHER SAID ABOUT THE SABBATH:
"They allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it appear, neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments." Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 28.
Now read what the Roman Catholic Church says about the Sunday Sabbath. It is crucial that Protestants realize who they are aligning themselves with if they observe the Sunday Sabbath. The Papacy! "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. " Daniel 7.25. :
"The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret, even divine laws....The Pope can modify divine law, since his power is not of man but of God, and he acts as vicegerent of God upon earth with most ample power of binding and loosing the sheep."-From the Prompta Bibliotheca published in 1900 in Rome by the press of the propaganda.
"The pope has power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ."-Decretal de Translat, Episcop. Cap.
The pope's will stands for reason. He can dispense above the law, and of wrong make right by correcting and changing laws."-Pope Nicholas, Dis. 96.
It is within the inspired words "think to change times and laws" that we discover the "mark of the beast."
The following are all authentic quotations that will definitely answer our questions as to what the "mark of the beast" is. Notice them carefully.
"The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."-Catholic Mirror, Sept. 23, 1893.
You will notice in this information that the Church declares that it was not God Who changed the day from Saturday to Sunday but that they, the papists, were the ones who made this change. The Sabbath was officially changed by the Papacy at the Council of Laodicea on March 7, 364 A.D. That was 43 years after Constantine declared Sunday the day for Christians to honor as a rest day.
"Question.-Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?"
"Answer.-Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her,-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."-Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism, p. 174.
This quotation emphasizes the fact that since the world accepts Sunday as a day of worship, this acknowledges her supremacy.
"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to any one 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 that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.' 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 Enright, C.S.S.R., Kansas City, Missouri.
There is no question concerning the changing of Sabbath the seventh day to Sunday the first day by the Papacy. You can readily see that there is nothing to be found in the Bible about changing the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. The Papacy is correct in stating that they changed the day.
"In reply to a letter of October 28, 1895, to Cardinal Gibbons, asking if the church claimed the change of the Sabbath as her mark, the following was received: '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."
Sunday is the mark of authority of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the "Mark of the Beast." Of this there is absolutely no question, either in the Word of God or in history.
Are Protestant churches aware of these facts? Do they agree that there is no Scriptural authority for Sunday keeping? Let us now turn to the various Protestant churches and hear from them.
Presbyterian: "The Christian Sabbath (Sunday) is not in the Scripture, and was not by the primitive church called the Sabbath.'Dwight's theology, vol. 4, p. 401.
Congregational: "There is no command in the Bible requiring us to observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath." Fowler, Mode and Subjects of Baptism.
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," quoted in Cox's Sabbath Manual, p. 287.
Friends, don't you think that when a church admits they are following a teaching not founded on the Word of God, they ought to change and follow God's Word?
Episcopalian: "The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday."-Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church, p. 186, translated by Henry John Rose, B.D. (Philadelphia: James M. Campbell & Co., 1843).
Here is another church that admits it was not the apostles' intention that the day of worship should ever be changed.
Methodist: "it is true there is no positive command for infant baptism .... Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week."-Rev. Amos Binney, Theological Compend, pp. 180, 181, 1902 ed.
Even our Methodist friends admit that there is nothing in the Bible directing us to keep Sunday holy. Let us turn to our friends the Baptists:
Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of The Baptist Manual, before a group of ministers, made this candid admission:
"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, 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.
"Of course," he continues, "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, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!"-From a paper read before a New York Ministers' Conference, held Nov. 13, 1893.
Here is one of the leaders of a great Protestant denomination clearly admitting that Sunday keeping is branded with the Mark of paganism.
Please go to my website
http://www.religiouscounterfeits.org
...and on the homepage click on the link "Who or what is the ANTICHRIST?" and also scroll down and click on the National Sunday Law graphic to download a short free book to read about the Mark of the Beast and the Sabbath. I challenge all of you to read these two documents.
THEN go to my website:
http://www.religiouscounterfeits.org/romes-challenge.htm
and read "Rome's Challenge" to Protestants.... you will be amazed at how the Roman Catholic Church ridicules Protestants for bowing down the the Catholic Church by keeping the Sunday Sabbath.