Sabbath vs. Sunday

June 21, 2007

By Ernie Knoll

In my dream, it is early morning as I find myself walking on a sidewalk next to a church. I am taking a couple of my radio-controlled airplanes to go fly. As I walk past the church, I hear one man say to another, “Happy Sabbath.” I stop and exclaim, “Sabbath! I thought it was Sunday, not Saturday.” One of the men says, “It is Sunday, the Sabbath.” I turn, smile at him, and say, “Nooooo, Sunday is not the Sabbath, Saturday is. Nowhere in the Bible does it mention that Sunday is the Sabbath, nor does it say that Jesus changed it to Sunday.” The man points to a picnic table across the street and says for me to wait over there and he will have a man come over to speak to me.

A man in a suit now approaches me and says, “I am Doctor _____. (I cannot recall his name.) I am a professor of _____. I have degrees in _____. I have received awards in _____ and I am published in _____.” I respond with “I have read a few books, and I like to fly radio-controlled airplanes, and I like to talk to God all the time.” The professor now sits down at the end of the table, removes his glasses, puts one end in his mouth and says, “I unnnderssstaaannnd you do not knnnooowww what day it iiisss.” (This is typed somewhat the way it is stated.) By now there are quite a few people gathering around the table and the seats are full. I look at the professor and say, “On the way past the church, I was surprised that a man was telling another man ‘Happy Sabbath.’ I told him it is Sunday, not Saturday, and the man said that it was Sunday, the Sabbath.”

I now explain to the professor, with the others listening, how today is Sunday, the first day of the week and that the Bible teaches that God created our planet and all life in six days but rested on the seventh day.[1] I share how Saturday has always been referred to as the Sabbath and that in different languages[2] Saturday is called Sabbath. I mention there are several places in the Bible that say the seventh day of the week, Saturday, is the Sabbath.[3] I also state that the fourth commandment is the only one that starts with ‘Remember.’[4] I ask, “Have you all forgotten?”

One of the men standing at the table questions, “Aren’t you the one who says you have dreams of heaven?” “Yes,” I reply. As I share Acts 2:17,[5] the people become uninterested and even more so as I share my dreams. I notice one woman with her head resting in her hands and her elbows on the table. She listens intently to everything I say. I look up and try to gain the interest of the rest, but they follow away behind the professor. I turn to the woman and she says, “And continue.”[6]

[1]    Genesis 2:2, 3
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.

[2]   Italian – Sabato;
Spanish – Sabado;
Polish – Sobota;
Bulgarian – Shubbuta;
Greek – Sabbaton…
and many others.

[3]   Exodus 16:26
Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.

1. Exodus 20:11; Deuteronomy 5:14
   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.
   Luke 23:56
   And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.

 [4]    Exodus 20:8

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

[5]    Acts 2:17
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

[6]   Matthew 22:14
For many are called, but few are chosen.