Good morning, everyone. Who doesn't have a handout or who didn't get one last week? Okay, Roberto, can you pass this out? There's a few more in the back if people need it. So we're looking at chapter 22 of the Confession of Faith on religious worship and the Sabbath day. Specifically, we're looking at paragraphs 7 and 8, which deal about the Christian Sabbath. Last week, we looked at the first half of the handout, which were 12 arguments for the perpetuity of the Sabbath day, of the moral principle of the Sabbath, that God is to be worshiped, corporately worshiped. Labors are to be set down one day out of seven. So I presented 12 arguments for that. I'm sure people have presented more than that, but I hope at least those 12 at least taken together collectively, gives you a pretty convincing argument as a whole concerning, yeah, there's this thing called the Sabbath day. And it goes on and on and on throughout human history no matter what, Age you live in, no matter what culture you find yourself in, God demands to be worshiped one day in seven. So we looked at that in detail, but now I want us to consider the change of day. So seven-day Adventists would be amening a lot of what I said last week. And here is where they would give me some big boos. This is where we depart ways from Seventh-day Adventists and even Seventh-day Baptists. There are some Seventh-day Baptists, I think, still in existence even today. But this is where we would part ways with people like that. But the confession tells us here, and I think the Bible teaches us as well, that God has the prerogative to change the specific day we are to publicly worship Him. So before we look at this, let's pray together and ask God for His help. Heavenly Father, we Thank you for bringing us together again on the Lord's Day. Thank you for your faithfulness and your steadfast love and keeping us and protecting us and preserving us. Thank you that we can come into this place today with praise in our lips and thanksgiving in our hearts, most of all for the finished work of Jesus Christ. Help us to set our minds and hearts upon Jesus' resurrection from the dead, and the new creation He has brought in to this old, wicked, fallen world. Lord, help us to give You this sort of worship and praise today. And may You bless us, open up our minds that we might understand this subject of the Christian Sabbath, and help us to call it a delight. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So God has the prerogative to change the specific day we are to publicly worship Him. The Sabbath command is unique in that it is made up of both natural or moral and positive elements. And that makes it pretty unique among the Ten Commandments, that all the Ten Commandments are moral. But something unique about the fourth commandment is that there's this positive element to it. What do I mean by that? Well, the principle of one day and seven is natural or moral and is therefore unalterable. This reflects the very holy nature of our God. He's not going to change that principle because This principle reflects who our God is and what his will is, not just for a specific group of people, but for all mankind. So that's the moral principle. One day in seven needs to be set apart for the for the worship of God. The specific day, however, is positive. It was not embedded into the fabric of creation and written on man's heart, but was sovereignly appointed by God. So it's positive in the sense that it was added to that moral command, one in seven. What's the one? Well, God says, especially in the Old Testament, it's the seventh day. Man couldn't know that by nature. God had to reveal that to him. So it's positive. Therefore, if God so desired, He could bless another day and make it holy. God does have the prerogative to change the positive element of the Sabbath command. He could switch it from the 7th day to the 2nd day or the 3rd day or the 4th or the 5th or the 6th or the 7th or the 1st. He has the prerogative to do that. And as we read our Bibles, we see that Christ, as the God and Lord of the Sabbath, did just that. While keeping the Sabbath principle of 1 and 7 the same, Christ changed the Sabbath day from Saturday, the seventh day, to Sunday, the first day, when He rose from the dead and inaugurated the new creation. This is what our confession says about this. First it states that the seventh day Sabbath was part of the former days of the old creation in these words. Which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week, or the seventh day. So, from the very beginning of time to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, those thousands and thousands of years, the Sabbath day was the last day of the week, the seventh day. But the confession also states that the first day Sabbath is part of the latter days of the new creation, in these words. And from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's Day and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished. So God can abolish that positive command on the seventh day, He can change it to the first day. That's what our confession is stating. And it's all wrapped up in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That was a very special thing, a monumental thing, an earth-shaking and shattering event. Christ's resurrection from the dead. This is what Edmund Clowney says. The celebration on the seventh day has been transformed by Jesus' resurrection. Christ's victory over the powers of darkness in His resurrection glory accounts for the shift in the New Testament from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week. When Jesus accomplished a new redemption and brought in a new creation at His resurrection from the dead, God changed the public day of worship from Saturday to Sunday or from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week in commemoration of it. He abolished seventh-day observance and set up first-day observance. In this way, the natural and moral principle of the command is preserved throughout human history, while the positive element is changed to reflect the new redemptive historical realities for the people of God. Well, those are some very big assertions to make. What biblical evidence is there for this? Where in the Bible do we see this change in the day taking place? So it was interesting, when some of us were out at the river park for Friday After Five doing evangelism, we were handing out gospel tracts, and I ran into a guy who was also handing out tracts. So we exchanged tracts, and after I received his, I sat down and I started reading it, and the guy was a Seventh-day Adventist. So his tract was all about how the Sabbath day is this perpetual moral command. That was the first section. And then the second section was trying to refute this idea that God has changed the day from the seventh to the first. So I thought it was really interesting as I've been preparing to teach this. I get a tract that half of it I could probably agree with and the last half I absolutely can't." So again, Seventh-day Adventists and other people who observe the Seventh-day as the Sabbath would demand from us biblical evidence of this change, and we should give it to them. I mean, we need to derive everything that we do from the Word of God. So where in the Bible does it teach this change? Well, one of the objections that was in this tract was that there is no explicit statement in the Bible that this change has been made from the seventh to the first day of the week. And we have to agree with that. There is not an explicit statement concerning what I'm about to teach here. But here's the thing, we don't have to have an explicit statement like one verse that tells us in plain terms that this has occurred before we are to believe it. Our own confession of faith in chapter 1, paragraph 6 says, the whole counsel of God concerning everything essential for His own glory and man's salvation, faith, and life is either explicitly stated I can't show you an explicit statement, but it also says this, or by necessary inference contained in the Holy Scriptures. And so I think we can prove this change from seventh day to first day, not necessarily by explicit statements, but I think we can by necessary inferences that are contained in the Holy Scriptures. So that's what I want us to do now. I want to show you five necessary inferences and historical truths concerning this change from the seventh day to the first day. And I want to show you in these five ways. First, the stated end of the seventh-day Sabbath in Old Testament prophecy. Secondly, the steady dissolution of the seventh-day Sabbath in the New Testament. Third, the special activities on the first day of the week. Fourth, the sacred nature of the first day of the week. And then fifth, and finally, the strong testimony of the first day in the early church. I think if you take all those things together, you have to walk away and say, there has been a change of day. Again, based off of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So let's dive into these five necessary, I think, inferences and at least the last one, this historical fact. First, the stated end of the seventh-day Sabbath in Old Testament prophecy. As we saw earlier last week, the Old Testament prophesizes that in the latter days, the Sabbath day will be kept by God's new covenant people, Isaiah chapter 56. Remember, there's a prophecy about in the latter days, you would have these people called the foreigners. who would be brought into God's holy mountain and worship Him. And one of the descriptions of these people is they would keep the Sabbath day and not profane it. I quoted Richard Barcellas there, who also quoted John Bunyan. But I think there's some indication, even in the Old Testament, that those who are the new covenant people of God, who are living in the days of the gospel and the Messiah, will keep the Sabbath day. But the Old Testament also prophesizes that the Sabbath day will cease. So it's an interesting thing that we have to bring together. God's people will keep it, and yet it will cease. Here are the words of Richard Barcelos. The Old Testament clearly prophesizes that the abrogation and cessation of ancient Israel's Sabbaths. It does so in Hosea 2.11, which says, I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, her Sabbaths, all her appointed feasts. So he's directing us to Hosea 2.11. which again says this, I will also cause all her mirth to cease, including her Sabbaths. He then argues and goes on to show that this prophecy is fulfilled in the days of the inaugurated new covenant. The context of Hosea 2 proves this. At the end of the chapter, it has a wonderful description of how God will betroth His new covenant people, He'll make a covenant with them, He will betroth them, He will love them as a husband loves a wife, and they will no longer be called no mercy, but they will be called mercy. And Peter quotes that in 1 Peter 2 and applies it specifically to the church of the Lord Jesus. But Rich does a good job showing that Hosea 2, and especially here, verse 11, is fulfilled in the days of the gospel. But the New Testament also bears witness to this. I think Colossians 2, verses 16 through 17 is one of those places. The Apostle Paul says, Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." It's almost as if Paul has Hosea 2, verse 11 in mind. There's that triad, there's the feast days, new moon, sabbaths, Hosea 2.11. What does Paul say? Festival, new moon, sabbath. It's as if he knows Hosea 2.11 is being fulfilled in the days of the gospel. And he says that these things are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Well, more will be said on this passage later because I think Colossians 2 is greatly, greatly abused by those who deny the Christian Sabbath. But I think it's teaching us here that all of Israel's Sabbaths, and again I italicize Israel's, whether weekly or occasionally, were fulfilled and laid to rest by Christ. In other words, the Sabbath given to Israel in its specific Old Creation and Old Covenant forms has been done away with. Rich states this, the Sabbath, and this is his italics, the Sabbath as given to the people of Israel under the Mosaic Covenant has been abolished. And it's important to make those qualifying statements. He doesn't just say the Sabbath has been abolished, but specifically the Sabbath given to the people of Israel under the Mosaic Covenant has been abolished. According to the Apostle Paul, the shadowy Old Covenant version of the Sabbath day has ceased. Specifically, the seventh-day Sabbath has passed away. But the substantial new covenant version of the Sabbath day has taken its place. That is the first day Sabbath that Christ instituted at His resurrection from the dead. I think that's how we can understand this ancient Old Testament prophecy that God says your Sabbaths will cease. And the very context is He's making a new covenant with His people. Well, it ceased in the sense of it ceased as the way it was given to Old Testament Israel. That has been done away with. But I do not think Hosea 2 or Paul and Colossians 2 is saying the Sabbath principle has been entirely wiped away from creation or from the church. The way it was given to Israel is gone. in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ. He is the substance. He has fulfilled all of what Old Testament Israel was given and required. But that doesn't wipe away the fact that there is this Sabbath principle embedded into creation, the work of it written upon man's heart, and we see it now instituted at the resurrection of the dead by Jesus Christ. But there is this understanding that in the days of the gospel, the Sabbath, and specifically the seventh-day Sabbath, would pass away. But it doesn't exactly tell us what day would take its place. So we have to be thinking in our minds, well, if that seventh day will pass away, and if the principle will remain, what day will emerge? We really begin to see that in the New Testament. So secondly, let's look at the steady dissolution of the seventh day in the New Testament. During the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sabbath day was on the seventh day of the week. I won't read all these scriptures, but it's clear when you read through the Gospels, when it says the Sabbath day, it means the seventh day. This is true even throughout the book of Acts. So even after Christ is raised from the dead and ascends to glory and pours out His Spirit upon the church, you have the word Sabbath or Sabbath day being used throughout the book of Acts and it is still referring to the seventh day of the week. So some people can get tripped up by that. How can you say that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath established by Jesus Christ after His resurrection from the dead, and the very word Sabbath is being used throughout the book of Acts to still refer to the seventh day. Well, here's my answer. We know that everything associated with the old creation and old covenant was beginning to pass away at the inauguration of the new creation and new covenant of Jesus Christ. Remember, the book of Acts, time of the apostles, is kind of a transitionary period. It was old creation, new creation colliding together, old covenant, new covenant colliding together. There was still some mixture of old covenant, new covenant things happening together, especially in the book of Acts. But we know that everything associated with the old creation and old covenant was passing away. right at the inauguration of the new covenant. Hebrews 8.13 is clear on this. And speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. And also the words of the Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 5.17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. individually and universally. The old is passing away, but there's this transitionary period between Old Covenant and New Covenant where things were not as stable as they are today. And I think that's how we can explain why even after the resurrection of Jesus Christ throughout the book of Acts, the Sabbath was still the seventh day of the week, at least in terms of how it's spoken of in the book of Acts. It was only a matter of time, AD 70 to be exact, when the old creational covenantal order of worshiping and serving God would finally end at the destruction of Jerusalem and be completely replaced by the new creational covenantal order in Jesus Christ. So again, there's this clash of covenants, this clash of creations, but at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, God put an end completely to the old way of worshiping Him. So what was vanishing away and passing away according to the book of Hebrews had officially passed away when God sent judgment upon His old covenant people and ended that entire way of approaching God and worshiping Him. So this included the abolition of animal sacrifices, dietary laws, the theocratic kingdom, and the seventh day Sabbath. So it was just steadily dissolving until 80-70 when it was completely done away with. So we see that here in the New Testament. But then let's specifically set our minds upon the first day. And let's look at the special activities on the first day. Very important events occurred on the first day of the week, Sunday, in the early church, which indicate the uniqueness and holiness of the day. So first, Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Mark 16.9 simply summarizes what all four Gospel accounts teach concerning when Jesus' resurrection took place. Now, when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. So, the Gospels are clear. It was on the first day of the week, early on that day, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. That is significant. There is a reason why we are told in the scriptures that this happened on the first day of the week. Secondly, Jesus revealed himself in a special way to his disciples on the first day of the week. There's a lot of instances of Jesus appearing after his resurrection to his disciples. John 20, 14, Mary Magdalene. Matthew 28, 19, you have Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and several other women. Later on the day, Luke 24, you got the two disciples who are going to Emmaus. Then later on, John 20, we're told, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. So that all happened on the very first day that Jesus rose from the dead. He appeared to all of these various disciples and in a special way He appeared to His scared and frightened disciples at the end of that day and said, peace be with you. If you just fast forward a week later, John 20 verse 26, we're told this, eight days later, which They were counting inclusively, so it included the resurrection from the dead. So eight days later would actually just be a week later. It's one way that the Jews counted. But eight days later or a week later, which would be on the next first day of the week, his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with him. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. So specifically the phrase, the first day of the week is being used there and we are told that Jesus appears in a special way to bless His disciples and His disciples worship Him. That's significant. So again, Jesus rose from the dead, first day of the week. Jesus appeared to His disciples in a special way, first day of the week. The Spirit of God was poured out and the first Christian church was officially established at Pentecost on the first day of the week. Acts 2.1, when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. So everything that happens in at least a great majority of Acts chapter 2 happened on the day of Pentecost. Now, what day of the week did that occur on? It was the first day of the week. And we're not told that explicitly, but we know from what the Old Testament teaches that Pentecost happened on the first day of the week. It was 50 days after, I think, the Day of Atonement. So think about all the things that happened in the book of Acts in chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost. The outpouring of the Spirit. The preaching of the gospel in various languages, the salvation and baptism of about 3,000 people, and the establishment of the new temple of God in Jerusalem all happened on Pentecost, which was on Sunday, the first day of the week. And this guy just explains why Pentecost was on the first day of the week. He says, this day of Pentecost literally means 50 days. It was a special feast of the Jewish law which was to be observed 50 days after their Passover feast. I think I said Day of Atonement. I meant Passover. It was to be on the day after the Sabbath. Leviticus 23, 11 and 15. So the day on which the apostles received the Holy Spirit and began their work in preaching the gospel, and I would add in organizing the first church, was on a Sunday, the first day of the week, the day after the seventh day Sabbath. Again, that is really significant. The Apostle Peter doesn't have to tell us in explicit terms that that's significant. We should just understand that it is significant. This happened on the first day of the week. There's a pattern, hopefully, you're seeing. Jesus rises on the first day, appears to His disciples in a special way on the first day. The first explicit church of the Lord Jesus Christ is established on the first day. We have to be impacted by that. We can't just explain it away and say, oh, I need an explicit verse that tells me this. No, the Bible is telling us this if we have ears to hear. Fourth, the early church regularly met for corporate worship on the first day of the week. Now, we are never told that the church of the risen Lord Jesus Christ met on the seventh day Jewish Sabbath to worship God. We're not told that at all. And I think that's something that the Seventh Day Adventists look over. They're always asking us for an explicit statement. Well, I'll say there is no explicit statement in the entire New Testament that tells us that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ met for worship on the seventh day of the week. Matthew Poole says this, Nor indeed do we read in all the Scripture of any congregation of Christians on the Jewish Sabbath. We have not so much as one instance after the resurrection of any congregation where Christians only were assembled upon the Jewish Sabbath." Well, if these devout Jews who now believed in the Messiah were so used to meeting every seventh day to worship God, How do you explain that they're no longer doing that in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, it was the Apostle Paul's custom to go into the Jewish synagogues on the seventh-day Sabbath, but here's the thing. He didn't go into those places for corporate worship. He went into those places for public evangelism. So when we read throughout the book of Acts of Paul going into the synagogues, you have to ask yourself the question, what is he doing there? And he's not there for corporate worship. He is there to proclaim that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He's there to evangelize these Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles. He went to preach the gospel to Jews who needed to hear that Jesus, their Messiah, had come. And those are all of the instances that I found throughout the book of Acts, where either it says specifically on the Sabbath day, He entered into the synagogue, or just He entered into the synagogue. Read what He was doing. Reasoning, persuading, proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah of the world. So that was his specific purpose. And the same thing with Apollos. I think it's in Acts chapter 18. He's going into the synagogue. What is he doing? He's boldly preaching about Jesus Christ. But the custom of the apostolic church was to meet on the first day Sabbath to worship God through Jesus Christ their Lord. Two passages make this clear. First, Acts chapter 20 verse 7. On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight." So there's a Christian congregation meeting together. What day is it on? The first day of the week. The church in Troas, that's who these people were, gathered together on the first day of the week to hear Paul preach the Word of God and to break bread, which is most likely a reference to taking the Lord's Supper. You can break bread in a normal way, in a normal meal. You can also break bread in a sacramental way, in a holy meal, which is referring to the Lord's Supper. Well, they came together to worship God, to hear the preaching of the gospel, and to break bread in a holy way, at least at first, which was to take the Lord's Supper together. When did this all happen? The first day of the week. And then we have 1 Corinthians 16, verses 1 through 2. Paul says, Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches in Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when I come. On the first day of every week. OK, with everything else that we have in mind from what the New Testament teaches about the first day of the week. We have to let that understanding help us interpret what Paul says here in 1 Corinthians chapter 16. So what do you think these believers were doing on the first day of every week? The Galatian church or the multiple churches in this area and the church in Corinth, they were gathering together to worship God. They weren't just sitting at home by themselves and Paul is telling them to set aside some money in their own private homes and just wait for Paul to come and then somehow he would be able to collect it all together. No, the easiest way for Paul to receive this collection for the saints was if they were laying these things aside in the public worship of God so that when Paul came, he didn't have to go house to house to house searching for collections and money. but it was all right there for him to take to the needy saints in the Roman Empire. So I think the most likely interpretation of this passage is that the churches in Galatia and Corinth were in the habit of gathering together on the first day of every week to worship God. Not just the first day of the week every now and then, but the first day of every week. When they did so, they were to place their offerings into a common treasury for easy pickup when the Apostle Paul visited them on the first day of every week. So those are some of the special, important activities and events that were happening on the first day of the week recorded for us by the New Testament. The fourth, the sacred nature of the first day. The Lord Jesus Christ has special ownership of the first day of the week. This is because it is called the Lord's Day by the Apostle John in Revelation 110, when he says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. Now, Lord's Day here does not refer to the day of judgment, the final day of judgment. And it does not refer to some special day in the year, but it refers specifically to the first day of the week. As we will soon see, the testimony of the early church to this is indisputable. And from what we have already seen concerning the work and worship of Christ on the first day of the week, it makes perfect sense that Sunday takes on the official title of the Lord's Day. Now in Revelation 110, the adjective translated lords literally means belonging to or owned by the Lord. He has this special ownership of this one day called the Lord's Day. Now every day is the Lord's, but this day belongs to Him in a special way. Even in the Greek language today, the name for Sunday is this exact same adjective. Do you know that? Kyriake? That's what Sunday is called. So if you lived in Greece, instead of saying Sunday, you would say Lords. It's like immortalized in the Greek language that Sunday is the Lord's Day. Even people who are not Christians still have to call it the Lord's Day. even today. Now, the only other place in the Bible this word is used is in 1 Corinthians 11 20, which says, when you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. Same exact word. So this supper is something that belongs in a special way to the Lord Jesus Christ. So just as the supper belongs in a special way to the Lord, so does Sunday. It is His table as it symbolizes His sacrificial death on the cross, and it is His day as it marks His earth-shattering resurrection from the dead and the pouring out of His Spirit on His people. The fact that the first day of the week in New Testament times belongs in a special way to the Lord Jesus Christ is very similar to how the seventh day of the week in Old Testament times belonged in a special way to Yahweh. Again, some people say, OK, I see that Sunday is the Lord's Day, but it's not a Sabbath day. But there's this interesting connection between the Sabbath day in the Old Testament belonging specifically to Yahweh. And the first day of the week specifically belonging to the Lord Jesus in the New Testament. The Sabbath day in the Old Testament is called by a similar title. It is the day of the Lord or the Lord's Day. That's another name for even the Old Testament Sabbath. You could call it the Lord's Day, the Old Testament Lord's Day, Yahweh's Day. Find that in Isaiah chapter 58 verse 13. If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, literally my holy, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable, literally the holy of the Lord honorable. You see the Sabbath day there, it's called the holy day of Yahweh. We get to the New Testament, the first day of the week is called the Lord's day, the day of the Lord. There's a connection there. The Sabbath day in the Old Testament belongs exclusively to the Lord, Yahweh. It is His holy day and it was to be hallowed and honored by His old covenant people. The same is true for the Sabbath day in the New Testament. It belongs exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrected and reigning Lord of the Christian Sabbath. It is his holy day and it is to be treated as holy by his new covenant people. So that's the sacred nature of the day. And then I just want to finish with this and we'll have a little bit of time for questions. Fifth, the strong testimony of the first day in the early church. This isn't derived from the scriptures necessarily, but this is derived from church history. Now, church history is not completely authoritative, infallible, but it should be informative and instructive to us. And so, if there is a consensus among the early church that was widespread, we should at least perk up our ears to what they had to say. And this is true for how they saw the first day of the week. It is undeniably clear that the early Christian church, following apostolic precedent, believed the first day of the week was the Lord's day and met on that day for corporate worship. Although it cannot be said that all the great theologians of the early church explicitly articulated the confessional view of the Sabbath found in paragraphs 7 and 8, it can be said that they all considered Sunday the Lord's Day and held it in high and holy esteem." And I do think that many of them embrace the basic elements of the Christian Sabbath. We'll see that a lot of them are arguing against the seventh-day Sabbath, and they kind of use Sabbath in that sort of way. But I think in a lot of them the basic elements of the Christian Sabbath are there. So in what follows, I have provided a sample of their statements in chronological order regarding the first day of the week. And this is not exhaustive, brethren. This is just a sample. The Didache, AD 100. On every Lord's Day, His special day, come together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. Ignatius, A.D. 107, those then who lived by ancient practices arrived at a new hope. They ceased to keep the Sabbath and lived by the Lord's day, on which our life, as well as theirs, shone forth, thanks to Him and His death, though some deny this. Again, Ignatius says, and after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days of the week. That's AD 107. He sees the Lord's Day as the chief and queen of all the days of the week. Pliny the Younger, AD 112, he was a Roman governor in probably the area of modern-day Turkey now. A lot of the churches that Peter wrote to were in that very area. But he's writing this letter to Emperor Trajan, and this letter is one of the earliest surviving Roman documents that referred to the Christian community, but he says this, This they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day, before sunrise, and reciting an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God. After this they went on. It was their custom to separate, and then meet again to partake of food, but food of an ordinary and innocent kind." He doesn't specify the day there, but he says, on a certain fixed day, this was the habit of Christians. meeting together, singing praises to Christ as God in the morning, and then they would get together again later on and worship God in fellowship with one another. Barnabas, A.D. 131, wherefore also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness. Again, eighth day is the first day of the week. The day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. Justin Martyr, A.D. 155-157. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world. And Jesus Christ, our Savior, on the same day, rose from the dead. So God started His first creation on the first day of the week. And then he accomplished his second creation, the new creation, on the first day of the week. He's seeing a parallel or a connection between the two. Dionysus of Corinth, A.D. 170. Today we have kept the holy Lord's day on which we have read your letter, which we shall ever possess to read and to be admonished even as the former one written to us through Clement. So they kept the holy Lord's day. Tertullian, AD 200. We have nothing to do with Sabbaths, new moons, or the Jewish festivals, much less with those of the heathen. We have our own solemnities. The Lord's Day, for instance, in Pentecost. As the heathen confine themselves to their festivals and do not observe ours, let us confine ourselves to ours and not meddle with those belonging to them. Athanasius, A.D. 345. The Sabbath was the end of the first creation. The Lord's Day was the beginning of the second, in which He renewed and restored the old in the same way as He prescribed that they should formally observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things. So we honor the Lord's Day as being the memorial of the new creation. And then Theodorette, AD 448-452, he's writing about a heretical sect called the Ebionites who were claiming to be Christians but also had all kinds of Jewish attachments. But he says this about them, they keep the Sabbath according to the Jewish law and sanctify the Lord's Day in like manner as we do. So he's not agreeing with the fact that they're keeping the Sabbath according to Jewish law, but he says, we do hold this in common. They keep as well as we keep the Lord's Day. And brethren, the list could go on and on and on. I'm just trying to show you throughout the centuries in the early church, this was their thought about the first day of the week. It was the Lord's Day and they kept it holy. And one of the most important things they did on that day was to gather together. and the corporate worship of God, to worship their God through Jesus Christ their Lord. So here's my conclusion. The Old Testament prophesied that in the latter days the Sabbath would cease and yet at the same time would continue on. The seventh-day Sabbath passed away and was replaced by the first-day Sabbath due to the resurrection of Christ from the dead and the new creation He inaugurated. On the first day of the week, Christ rose from the dead, met with his disciples, poured out his spirit, established the church, gathered his people for worship and sanctified the day to be uniquely his. The early church clearly honored and set apart Sunday as the Lord's Day and saw it as the holy day of corporate worship. Therefore, in Christ, the new creation has come, the new covenant has been cut, the new temple has been laid, and the new day has dawned to rest in and worship our conquering King. I don't have time for any applications, but I do want to have a little bit of time for questions, so you may have any questions or comments specifically about the change from seventh to first day. makes that mention that the old covenant was going to pass away, and the new is going to come. But also, if you follow the argument in Hebrews chapter 9, it describes a lot of the old customs. But then it gets into the new custom when you get into Hebrews chapter 9, verse 11. When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered into the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, let it say, not of this creation. And it goes on to say that not with the blood of goats, Thank you, brother. Pastor Sam? that what the Bible teaches is not just explicit when it says explicitly, but what it says might be a necessary inference. Yeah. But one of the great proof texts of that is that when Jesus goes through the resurrection of the dead, he says that, he quotes the text, the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, And he assumes that that text approves the resurrection of the dead. But he'll build his argument on the present tense of it. And it's clear that that's not explicitly what the text says. But Jesus says, this is what it means by good and necessary inference. And there are many illustrations. And we could say that for a whole host of Christian doctrines. And we may not have explicit statements about, and yet by good and necessary inference contained in the Scriptures, we come to these theological conclusions, and they're right. Austin and then Alex. I appreciate your comment last week that you said that this doctrine is one that reformed vassals are often mocked for, for holding. In my experience, when trying to explain this doctrine to others, Colossians 2, 16, verse 7 are often quoted at me, and then I'm just mocked because I'm told that Christ is my rest, Christ is my rest, Christ is my rest. I appreciated the comments that you made about Paul alluding to Hosea 2, but my question is are there any other exegetical indicators that help us see that this is positive elements of the Old Covenant standard that Paul's alluding to other than the allusion to Hosea 2? Does that question make sense? I haven't had a chance to get to the applications, but one of them, we must defend the Lord's Day, and I'll talk in more detail about that next week, so I'll just hold the question until then. Alex? Same thing. The supposed problem passages are Romans 14, Colossians 2, and Galatians 4, 8-11. That's what anti-Sabbatarians want to run to bash our heads in, telling us that we're legalists. But I think they're entirely twisting and abusing those texts. Mickey, and then Roberto, and then we got to end. Yeah. And you always see that in Judgment Day. You know, we met, we went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and then we met on the first day of the week. I don't see where it's called the Christian Sabbath ever in the New Testament, but it is called the Wednesday. And so could the term Sabbath be a positive form, and that's why it's deemed that way in the Ten Commandments? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to get mixed up on terminology. The confession calls it here, the Christian Sabbath. But the point is, we have to say that the Lord's Day is not just a special day, but it's a Sabbath day as well. That's the point of calling it the Christian Sabbath. that it carries on the Sabbath principle embedded in creation at the very beginning of time. And that hasn't... Israel? Exodus 16 is the first time you actually have the explicit word Sabbath. Of course, you have God resting on the seventh day of the week, which would imply a Sabbath. Although the specific term I don't think is used to Exodus 16. But I'll get back with you on that, Mickey. Okay, guys, thank you for your attention. Let's pray and then we'll sing our hymn together. Heavenly Father, thank you again for this time. Thank you for your word. Please give us wisdom and understanding in it and help us to apply it to the benefit of our souls and to the glory of your great name. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.