No Mention of Sabbath Untill Into Exodus Journey?

The Hebrews left Egypt on a Thursday night and marched and camped for a total of 38 days before they kept their first Sabbath, treating all the previous days of their journey the same in regard to travel and work. One week before observing the first Sabbath ever kept by anyone, they marched 20 kilometers from their camp by the Red Sea to the edge of the Wilderness of Sin, trampling on the 7th day of their week, arriving around 5 pm on the 31st day of their journey late that “Saturday” afternoon. That evening, God introduced the Manna Obedience Test to Israel, instructing them to gather daily an amount sufficient for their needs for one day, and that on the sixth day they were to gather a double portion in order to provide them with manna on the Sabbath, seeing as there would be none provided on that day. Critical thinking elicits the fact that you cannot keep the Sabbath holy without a preparation day before it. All the work has to be completed before sundown on the 6^th day.

At this point in the Exodus journey, the Sabbath represented nothing more than the second of two obedience tests. It was not until a few weeks later when, at Mt. Sinai, the Sabbath was incorporated into the treaty between God and Israel known as the 10 Commandments. Like the ordinance of circumcision and the Jewish dietary laws, the institution of the Sabbath was designed to set the Hebrews apart from every other society on Earth, forming a protective social barrier that would severely restrict their interaction with the Heathen. Regarding these cultic Jewish rituals, a scholar once observed that people who do not eat together seldom become friends. If the Sabbath were a Creation ordinance with truly moral qualities, God would not have led His children out of Egypt without provision for keeping it every step of the way. Once, because of their sins, God seems to have threatened to take Israel’s Sabbaths away.

Hosea 2:11 (NIV) - ¹¹ I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed feasts.

There is some evidence that this text may merely represent a prophecy of what would become of Israel’s sabbath system as a result of their disobedience, rather than an actual statement that God would specially intervene to take away their sabbaths. During their various captivities, Israel undoubtedly experienced disruptions of their Sabbath-keeping. In either case,  the adoption of the fixed calendar by their conquering nations made it impossible to keep the Sabbath as is was specified in the Law of Moses. In effect, they were forced to keep “Saturday” rather than the “Sabbath.” All of this Sabbath chaos illustrates the fact that the Sabbath is characteristically ceremonial rather than moral. For example, if Israel was committing adultery and fornication “too much,” God would not suspend the parts of the Law of Moses that forbid these sins. Not even God Himself can set aside or suspend moral laws because such laws are based on the natural laws of cause and effect.

Before the Hebrews left Egypt, the instructions God gave them regarding the keeping of the Passover Feast suggest that no Sabbath existed at that time. This feast was to last seven days, so whether a fixed or lunar calendar is used for our calculations, one of those days would have to have been a Sabbath-- if there had been a Sabbath in existence at that time. The preparation of food was allowed on all of the seven days of the Passover feast. By contrast , cooking on the Sabbath was forbidden. For the Sabbath, the cooking must be done on the Preparation Day, or the sixth day of the week. If there was no sixth day of preparation, there could be no seventh-day Sabbath because food would have to be prepared for the people on it. While permission to prepare food on the Sabbath may have been granted in connection with some of the Jewish feast celebrations that God added later, the only national feast week God had given them up to the time of the Exodus was the Passover.

As our study unfolds it will become painfully clear that Exodus 16 provides water-tight proof—not merely evidence--that no Sabbath existed before the giving of the Manna. We do not use the term, proof, loosely. What this fact means is that any argument for the existence of the Sabbath prior to the Exodus must be remarkably clear, or it is hardly worth discussing. Also, any pro-Sabbatarian arguments must be able to stand on their own with evidence gathered only from Genesis 1 through Exodus 16. In view of the absolutes of Exodus 16, Sabbatarians should not expect to be taken seriously if their approach involves taking references to the Sabbath from beyond the account of the Exodus journey and stuffing them back into Genesis 2. In order for them to provide meaningful support for their agenda, they must demonstrate clear Sabbath content in Genesis 2.

All it takes is a brief survey of Genesis through Exodus 16 to see that there is nothing of this sort available to Sabbatarians. At the same time, there is only a limited amount of evidence available to anti-Sabbatarians, such as the four of us, to actually prove that there is no Sabbath content in Genesis. This evidence in found in part in that Moses used special literary devices to limit the blessing, hallowing, and sanctifying (the setting aside) of that day to that ONE day ALONE. We will explain these indicators and how they work subsequently. Meanwhile, let us turn our attention back to the Exodus journey. God introduced the Sabbath to Israel as something new. The people acted as if it were something new— a stiff-necked and stubborn people testing the boundaries. Some individuals gathered firewood on that first Sabbath. They did so publicly. If the Sabbath had existed prior to Exodus 16, these offenders would have been stoned. The stubborn nature of the Hebrew people strongly suggests that if there were Sabbaths before Exodus 16, some of them would have tested God by breaking the Sabbath every chance they got; yet there is no record that God ever rebuked them for Sabbath-breaking prior to Exodus 16. Here is what the Law of Moses has to say about Sabbath-breaking:

Num 15:32 - 36 (NIV) ³²While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. ³³Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, ³⁴and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. ³⁵Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” ³⁶So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.

Think how bad the Exodus journey would make God look if the Sabbath had originated at Creation! Was He not powerful enough to control the events of the Exodus to provide for Sabbath-keeping, including, in each case, a Preparation Day? What kind of example would He have set for His people? Do God’s children only have to keep the Sabbath when it is convenient? Clearly, there was no Sabbath to break until day 38 of the Exodus. Sabbatarian apologist, Brendan Knudson, suggests the possibility that if there was Sabbath-breaking involved under God’s direction-- “The ox is in the ditch” principle excusing God for leading His people to trample on it. Our position is that God had enough power to halt all the forces of Evil and Nature to enable them to keep the Sabbath if there had been a Sabbath to keep, and that as a cognate requirement, He would have also given them preparation days to assure that they could keep their Exodus Sabbaths without preparing food or gathering firewood upon it. People get hungry on Sabbath whether food was prepared the day before or not.  

Everything we know about God’s character screams out that He would not lead His people to break an eternally binding moral law. This fact explains several mysterious things that honest-at-heart, thinking Sabbatarians have secretly pondered. Why is there no mention of the Sabbath in Genesis? Why did God give Abraham a surgical procedure (circumcision) as a “seal” for his descendants instead of the Sabbath, which was never even mentioned? Why was Sabbath-keeping not included in a list of basic laws that God gave to Noah around the time of the Great Flood? Why did St. Paul instruct the early church not to require Sabbath-keeping of the new Gentile converts (Colossians 2:14-17)? And why did St. Paul not list Sabbath-breaking in any of the several lists of sins he discussed in his writings? In Galatians St. Paul discusses the Christian's freedom from the “LAW,” and it is clear he is discussing moral, rather than ceremonial, laws because the example he cited was adultery. Yet in the same breath he explained that the Christian is not subject to the LAW, he gave a list of 15 sins that he said would keep a person from entering Heaven. Robert K. Sanders observes that in Romans 1:28-32 he listed 16 sins that were not mentioned in Galatians 5 and that he listed still more sins in Ephesians 4:25-32-- and that in all of these lists there is not a single mention of Sabbath-breaking. With all the sins that Paul’s writings mention-- which included sins of motive and omission in addition to the sins of commission that are the focus of the Decalogue-- it is difficult to imagine how an objective Bible student could think that the 10 Commandments were intended to represent a complete guide to morality or that the Sabbath-keeping should be transferred from Judaism to Christianity. Apparently God didn’t think so either because he gave additional moral laws to Moses after He wrote the 10 Commandments in stone, including prohibitions against fornication (a very different sin from adultery in Hebrew thought) and homosexual relationships.

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Thanks to advanced studies in Hebrew linguistics we now know that there is no possibility that the Sabbath ordinance was imposed on God’s people until the time of the Exodus. We also know that Heathen societies that predated Exodus Era Israel had a “sabbath” concept based on the four phases of the moon and fertility themes. The next logical step requires the obvious conclusion, and that  is that the sabbath of propitiation and fertility associations that was so prevalent in the societies that predated ancient Israel could not have developed as the result of some kind of “dim memory” of the “original Sabbath” in the Garden of Eden. No such thing ever existed!  Additionally, some historians see evidence that this lunar-fertility sabbath was part of the Egyptian culture when the Hebrews were their captives.

The next logical step is to conclude that the evidence available to us suggests that when God gave Israel its sabbath system, His thinking was that He would take a useful but purely heathen concept, redeem it, wash it clean of its fertility and superstitious connotations, and present it to Israel in the glorious and holy form in which came down to them from Mt. Sinai-- The Mountain of the Moon.  It would appear that while it was washed of its Heathen connotations, its association with the four phases of the Moon was retained. After all, in Genesis, Chapter One, God stated that the sun and moon were given to the human race to determine “sacred times.” The lunar connection with the Sabbath, then, did not need to be cleansed as it reflected His provision for time-keeping for all peoples for all time from the beginning of time. The earliest societies on Earth had retained the memory of the lunar method of time reckoning that God had given to the world in the very beginning. And this memory was not a “dim” one either.  With each appearance of the Moon, all the people on the Earth recognized the existence of God's long-lasting timepiece.

From: Lying for God: What Adventists Knew And When They Knew It!

Gerald Weston: The World Is Depraved. Time Is Short. Give Us Your Money And Claim Your Heavenly Reward

From Gerald Weston's last co-worker letter.

This record has been skipping in the same spot for 70+ years now.

Nothing new is ever mentioned, even though we are in the 21st century now.

Same tired and worn out words. 

The world is still depraved, the same begging for money, the same "final push" malarkey.

I think we all know that our world is in trouble. Stock markets around the world may be up for the time being, people in some countries may have full wallets and purses, but this does not indicate all is well. Precious few people are alive today who remember the “Roaring ’20s” of the last century, but we might do well to remember that those days were followed by the Great Depression and World War II.

We are living in a world filled with conflicts, moral degradation, and in our Western World, a lack of awareness of God. God is lampooned at every turn, and those who stand up for morality and godly values are equally despised and put down. Where this is leading, is not good! God will not put up with this depravity forever! “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:7-10).

Dear brethren and co-workers, let us work while it is day, for “the night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4). Jesus referred to His own Work, but if He is living within us, it must surely be a message for us to take to heart. The Work He refers to is “the works of Him who sent Me….” God calls us to do a Work. It is difficult to see in every detail how events will play out, but free speech is under assault, and there is this sobering prediction: “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord God, ‘That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it’” (Amos 8:11-12). Is this a warning for us? 

Let us work the Work of God while we have time. And thank you for your prayers and generous support. I look forward to that day when we will stand together before the throne of God and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servants!” May that day come quickly!

Sincerely, in Christ’s service,

Gerald E. Weston

Life in a Cult

A reader here sent in this link to Radio National (Australia) concerning a program on cults that aired on Thursday.

You might think cult members are naive and easily led, but the psychology and group-think that holds the collective together is extremely powerful.

We examine how and why people get involved in a cult, what keeps them there and what happens when they finally leave.

Tore Klevyer spent a decade living in a Christian cult, and later trained as a counsellor who helps others recover.

Mary Garden is a former cult member who explored various sects in India during the 1970s and has written extensively about her experiences

Life in a cult: how I got in, how I got out

Oh No you don't.....Not here Buster.

No Ron Weinland or Gerald Flurry type is ever going to get anywhere near Jerusalem to act out the role of the Two Witnesses.  Dozens of Two Witnesses, no doubt, have already had their say in Jerusalem to no effect.  Most end up for a check up at the local psych ward and if warranted are deported back to where they came from.  Israelis don't put up with much monkey business in one of the worlds most dangerous religious cities.

Perhaps Dave Pack has figured out he has no hope to ever get into Jerusalem as both of the Two Witnesses so has moved the entire operation to Wadsworth where he can continue to deceive his gyrating members with his delusional perspectives about himself and his utter importance to the success of Jesus ever returning a second time.

I imagine Dave also will declare Wadsworth the Place of Safety  out of sheer convenience to him and the fact that , as with Jerusalem, no God-Haunted prophecy hounds from the United States are going to get to move in to a World Heritage Site, which Petra is,  without being confronted and sent home.

Jerusalem Syndrome

The temporary psychiatric condition-characterized by patients
believing that they have become biblical figures such as Jesus, John
the Baptist, or Moses-has been known to Israeli psychiatrists for
decades. It affects mainly Christian pilgrims but is occasionally
diagnosed in Jews who tour holy sites. Those affected begin to act
strangely, sometimes proclaiming that they are ancient religious
figures sent on a holy mission. Apocalyptic Christians expect the next
millennium to herald the second coming of Jesus on the Mount of Olives
in Jerusalem, so experts have warned that the number of patients may
increase sharply.

Professor Eliezer Witztum, a psychiatrist at Jerusalem’s Herzog
Memorial Hospital, explained that many Christians view Jerusalem as
the site of the Armageddon and the second coming. When they visit
Jerusalem, they may experience cognitive dissonance because of the
conflict between their mental image of ancient Jerusalem and the
reality of the modern city. Religious Jews with the syndrome may
believe that the building of the third temple is imminent, that the
ancient animal sacrifices will be restored, and that their own Messiah
will soon arrive.

Types

The classic Jerusalem syndrome, where a visit to Jerusalem seems to trigger an intense religious psychosis that resolves quickly or on departure, has been a subject of debate in the medical literature.^[2][3][6] Most of the discussion has centered on whether this definition of the Jerusalem syndrome is a distinct form of psychosis, or simply a re-expression of a previously existing psychotic illness that was not picked up by the medical authorities in Israel.

In response to this, Bar-El et al. classified the syndrome^[1] into three major types to reflect the different types of interactions between a visit to Jerusalem and unusual or psychosis-related thought processes. However Kalian and Witztum have objected, saying that Bar-El et al. presented no evidence to justify the detailed typology and prognosis presented and that the types in fact seem to be unrelated rather than different aspects of a syndrome.

Type 1

Jerusalem syndrome imposed on a previous psychotic illness. This refers to individuals already diagnosed as having a psychotic illness before their visit to Jerusalem. They have typically gone to the city because of the influence of religious ideas, often with a goal or mission in mind that they believe needs to be completed on arrival or during their stay. For example, an affected person may believe himself to be an important historical religious figure or may be influenced by important religious ideas or concepts (such as causing the coming of the Messiah or the second coming of Christ).

Type II

Jerusalem syndrome superimposed on and complicated by idiosyncratic ideas. This does not necessarily take the form of mental illness and may simply be a culturally anomalous obsession with the significance of Jerusalem, either as an individual, or as part of a small religious group with idiosyncratic spiritual beliefs.

Type III

Jerusalem syndrome as a discrete form, uncompounded by previous mental illness. This describes the best-known type, whereby a previously mentally balanced person becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem. The psychosis is characterised by an intense religious character and typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks or after being removed from the locality. It shares some features with the diagnostic category of a "brief psychotic episode", although a distinct pattern of behaviors has been noted:^{[by whom?]}

1. Anxiety, agitation, nervousness and tension, plus other unspecified reactions.
2. Declaration of the desire to split away from the group or the family and to tour Jerusalem alone. Tour guides aware of the Jerusalem syndrome and of the significance of such declarations may at this point refer the tourist to an institution for psychiatric evaluation in an attempt to preempt the subsequent stages of the syndrome. If unattended, these stages are usually unavoidable.
3. A need to be clean and pure: obsession with taking baths and showers; compulsive fingernail and toenail cutting.
4. Preparation, often with the aid of hotel bed-linen, of a long, ankle-length, toga-like gown, which is always white.
5. The need to shout psalms or verses from the Bible, or to sing hymns or spirituals loudly. Manifestations of this type serve as a warning to hotel personnel and tourist guides, who should then attempt to have the tourist taken for professional treatment. Failing this, the two last stages will develop.
6. A procession or march to one of Jerusalem's holy places, ex:The Western Wall.
7. Delivery of a sermon in a holy place. The sermon is typically based on a plea to humankind to adopt a more wholesome, moral, simple way of life. Such sermons are typically ill-prepared and disjointed.
8. Paranoid belief that a Jerusalem syndrome agency is after the individual, causing their symptoms of psychosis through poisoning and medicating.^[7]

Bar-El et al. reported 42 such cases over a period of 13 years, but in no case were they able to actually confirm that the condition was temporary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_syndrome

Darris McNeely and Days of Unleavened Bread

There is another excellent article on As Bereans Did concerning the Easter/Unleavened Bread teachings of the Church of God.  In the article is a section on the baseless claims if Darris McNeely about what Easter supposedly does not teach to Christians and what keep9ng Days of Unleavened Bread supposedly do.

I think it's safe to say that things haven't changed much since I left the COGs. I recently read the March-April edition of the United Church of God's “Beyond Today” magazine and, predictably, saw these regurgitated claims and more in Darris McNeely's article, “What Easter Doesn't Tell You.”

Here are the downright absurd things McNeely claims Easter fails to teach:

1. “Only God coming in the flesh could open the door of salvation for the human creation.”

2. “What's missing is understanding the way to eternal life through Jesus Christ, the Son of God!”

3. “Jesus Christ tasted death for every man so that God might give eternal life to those who call on His name.”

4. “You are missing out on the wonderful meaning of Passover and the death and reconciliation of Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered, died and was resurrected once for all time so that men might have the opportunity to enter into eternal life. Easter obscures the truth about that.”

Some other things mentioned that are worth conversation are:

2. Physical acts don't factor into your salvation.

Try as the modern COGs might, it's hard to get around the fact that the Days of Unleavened Bread focus on the physical. For days, weeks, and sometimes months, you focus on getting physical leaven out of your home. You pause to celebrate the Passover, and then the Night to be Much Observed – a lavish celebration not observed by Jesus' disciplines and AT LEAST as extra-biblical as Easter – then continue avoid leavening for the next seven days. Do you do it because you WANT to, because it's time to clean out the house, or because you want to try a low-carb diet? NO!!! You do it because you believe that not doing can keep you out of God's Kingdom. Yes, it was commanded – for Israel – and we have record of a few New Testament congregations like Corinth keeping it. It's likely that Christians like Peter and Paul observed it, although they certainly knew that doing so neither secured nor disqualified them. I get the distinct feeling that's not the impression members of UCG, COGWA, LCG or PCG get.

3. You will never be good enough – and that isn't the point, anyway.

You must put leavening out of your house, your minister tells you, because it symbolizes sin. In fact, those that don't put out leaven are sinning. But don't go overboard, because it's not possible and your focus should be primarily spiritual anyway. Also, laugh it off when you find a sandwich crust wedged in the bowels of your recliner next week, because God knows how hard you tried and will give you a pass. That one wasn't really sin because, you didn't know it was there. Or you forgot. Or whatever.

Huh? NOW who doesn't understand the gravity of sin?

Read the rest of the article here:  What the Days of Unleavened Bread Don't Tell You