“Idolatry” is having reverence for idols.  An “idol” is defined as any entity, human or otherwise, that is reverenced (revered/exalted) other than the Biblical God.  In His first commandment (Exo. 20:3-5) the Word (the God of the Old Testament who came to earth as Jesus of Nazareth) condemns idol worship, stating that He will not tolerate the existence of any object of reverence other than Himself.  The Word “before” in His commandment also means “beside” and “along with.”  He is not number one in the life of the true saint, he is the ONLY ONE.  In Matthew 10:37 Jesus is telling His disciples that many salvation seekers would be forced to choose between obeying Him and remaining in good standing with their family members, specifically sons and daughters.  He said that anyone who chose family over Him was not worthy of Him.  In Exodus 20:5 He tells the children of Israel that those who did so would be guilty of iniquity (Lawlessness) which would be an admission that they HATED HIM.  Later, when reminding the Israelites of God’s Words spoken from atop Mt. Sinai, Moses repeated that same message (Deut. 5:9).

The Lord’s message is clear, THOSE WHO REJECT EVEN ONE OF GOD’S COMMANDMENTS ARE SHOWING THAT HATE HIM.  He says the same thing in Luke 10:16 where He tells His disciples that anyone who rejects what they (the disciples) tell them are professing that they DESPISE BOTH HIM AND HIS FATHER.  As I have reported before,   three times God has told me to tell specific individuals what He said in the Holy Bible about their beliefs.  In all three cases the people rejected my words.  Each of them died for no medical reason within two months of hearing my words.  In two of the cases, the Lord’s Sabbath was the subject.  In each of those cases His message to me was accompanied by a vision.  In one case He gave me the same vision two times.  In those two cases I spoke with members of the dead people’s families after their deaths.  They each told me that the doctors could find no medical reason for their loved one’s death.  I was not lead to explain the reason.  In the third case the sin concerned alcohol.  This person simply dropped dead while going about his business.  I did not speak with his family about his death.  As this series will emphasize, GOD IS SERIOUS ABOUT HIS SABBATH, MUCH MORE SERIOUS THAN THE CHURCH BELIEVES, WHICH EXPLAINS WHY SHE HAS FALLEN SO FAR AWAY FROM HIM (Isa. 59:2).  Read Revelation 3:14-22 where Jesus is prophesying about the end-time (Laodicean) church of today.  His characterization perfectly describes her.

Now let us travel back in time in order to answer the who, when, where and why questions relative to the deadly “Sabbath Swap” that set “the church” on its downward rush into Satan’s waiting arms.  The Swap turned 99.99% of professing Christendom into idolaters–workers of iniquity whom Jesus does not “know” intimately.  In His eyes, they are all part of the world that He loves because He created them, not because they belong to Him.

The New Covenant Church was established on the Day of Pentecost 31 A.D.  For the next 293 years she observed God’s commanded Sabbath–the 7th day of each week which we call Saturday.  At that time the Roman Empire suddenly cast aside and a new sabbath was instituted in its place.  The devil’s instrument through whom he affected the heresy was Constantine, the Emperor of the world-ruling Empire.  A history lesson is necessary in order to understand how the deadly “Sabbath Swap” came about.

Anciently the Roman Empire ruled much of the known world with an iron fist.  Nation after nation, religion after religion fell to the overwhelming forces of the world’s greatest military, aided spiritually by the Catholic Church.  Because of the church’s help, Constine was indebted to her.  Because of this the Roman Empire united with her, creating a powerful church-state union.  Over time the church came to exercise considerable influence over the emperor and the all-powerful nation he ruled.  Church leaders, unable to persuade people to join their organization, convinced the emperor to force everyone in the kingdom, including their slaves, to “convert” to the Catholic Church.  The Romans examined the religions of those they absorbed into the empire, chose various beliefs and customs they liked and incorporated them into the empire’s religious belief system.  The church, ever eager for more “converts,” readily incorporated many of the heathen beliefs and customs of the captive peoples and absorbed them into her catechisms.  This is the manner in which the church came to believe and practice the heathen “truths” listed in the Introduction to this website.  Read Simon of Samaria: the Legacy.  Key word–Simon.

A large number of the Catholic Church’s “converts” were sun worshippers who paid homage to their god on “The Venerable (Holy) Day of the Sun”–the first day of the week known today as Sunday.  There were so many sun worshippers among the empire’s captives that Constantine declared in 324 A.D. at the Council of Nicene that from that time forward everyone within the Roman Empire would observe Sun Day as their day of rest and worship.  The Catholics readily abandoned God’s Sabbath and embraced the sun worshipers’ sabbath.  Fifty-two years later Pope Sylvester I made Sunday the church’s official sabbath.

Due to the number of worshipers of the wife of the sun god, Constantine ended the church’s practice of observing Passover and instituted a holiday dedicated to the whore of heaven whose name was different in different sun-worshiping societies.  Some of her names were Aphrodite, Diana, Isis and Ishtar.  In the Western World she came to be known as Easter whose symbols fertility–eggs, rabbits and baby chicks–came to be part of her veneration.  In my youth, colored chicks were sold on the streets of Campbell, Missouri during the Easter Season.

When Martin Luther and his followers left the Catholic Church in “protest” they took with them many of her heathen beliefs and customs which she had absorbed from her heathen parishioners.  Know this: Luther and the so-called “Protestants” did not leave the mother church because of her heathen beliefs and practices.  They left because of the personal sins of the priests.  Notice that today both Catholics and Protestants observe most of the heathen doctrines listed on this website’s Introduction page.  But there is another, much more serious problem relative to the Sabbath issue.

Just as Adam and Eve, and Lucifer before them, had exalted themselves over God, likewise those who observe Satan’s sabbath and desecrate God’s Holy Day have followed in their religious footsteps.  As stated in the Holy Scriptures, by eliminating the day the Almighty blessed, sanctified fulfilled, magnified and made honorable “Sabbath Swappers” are in fact proclaiming to the world that they hate/despise both Father and Son.   In the words of the Godhead, Sabbath deniers proclaim to the world that they hate the very Ones they claim saved them and birthed them again.  Could anything be more diabolical?

I have been thoroughly “corrected” by both ministers and laity about man’s God-given power to change the Lord’s Sabbath.  They present lengthy, man-generated, common-sense explanations concerning their right to override God’s command relative to the weekly Sabbath.  However, their “word salads” come with no dressing.  God provides the “dressing” which is in reality a Biblical  “dressing down” from Him.  I have found that just as no amount of verbal gibberish can erase the Word of the Lord, no amount of God’s Truth can change the mind of a died-in-the-wool Sunday Sabbather.   As he did with Adam and Eve, Satan has convinced them that they can rebel against God and “You shall not surely die.”  In so doing he overrides the message of Romans 3:23: “The wages of sin is death.”  The gift of God mentioned in that verse does not apply to those who know the Truth but refuse to believe and obey it.  Satan and Judas both knew the Truth, as did Solomon and 70 of the Lord’s disciples.  However, they all suffered from the same spiritual infirmity: THEY KNEW BUT DID NOT DO WHAT THEY KNEW TO DO.  THEY REBELLED AGAINST GOD.  LET US LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES.  L.J.