The Organized Church IS
The “Golden Calf”Lorraine Day, M.D.
Does God REALLY Care which Day we Keep Holy?
Virtually ALL Christians keep Sunday as their “holy” day of worship even though those who diligently study the Bible readily admit there is no biblical directive from God to do so. Every time God’s holy day is mentioned in His Word, it is clearly defined as the Seventh-day Sabbath – Saturday.
These denominations and their churches give various reasons for their Sunday worship including:
1) That’s the day Jesus was resurrected, or
2) We are New Testament Christians, or
3) The Saturday Sabbath is for the Jews, or
4) I keep every day holy to the Lord, or
5) God doesn’t care which day we keep holy.Let’s analyze these “reasons” above.
1) That’s the day Jesus was resurrected: We have already shown elsewhere, in great detail that Jesus was resurrected on the Seventh-day Sabbath, which is to be kept, according to the Bible, from “evening unto evening.” The days of creation began in the evening – “the evening and the morning were the first day. . . the evening and morning were the second day, etc.,” In the Bible, the days always begin with the evening before, beginning at sundown, and continue through 24 hours, ending at the following sundown.
The word Sabbath in English is the word Sabbaton in Greek. The Greek New Testament, the language in which it was written by those inspired by God, tells us this was the day that the women came to the tomb, and the tomb was already empty. Jesus had been crucified on Friday, the preparation day for the Sabbath, and put in the tomb before sundown on Friday night – the beginning of the Sabbath.
Obviously, since Jesus had already risen by the morning of “Sabbaton” – Saturday Sabbath, Jesus had to have been resurrected on Sabbaton – the Saturday Sabbath. The words “first day of the week” never appear in the original Scriptures, neither in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. Those words have been arbitrarily mistranslated from the original – which is mia sabbaton, literally translated “one of the Sabbaths” particularly in reference to the resurrection, referring to the 7 “Sabbaths” between Jesus’ resurrection and Pentecost (50 days = 7 Sabbaths).
Therefore, suggesting that one should keep Sunday holy because Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, is not a valid reason.
2) We are New Testament Christians: Again, there is no command by the Lord to keep Sunday holy. Jesus kept holy the Seventh-day Sabbath – Saturday – not Sunday. And even right before his death, as well as after His resurrection, He gave NO directive that His followers should keep a different day holy.
3) The Saturday Sabbath is for the Jews: The Sabbath was given to Adam and Eve by God, as a memorial of His creation of them – which includes the entire human race – as well as the creation of the world, and everything in it.
And Adam and Eve certainly were NOT “Jewish.” They were the parents of the entire human race. So, by giving the holy Sabbath – Saturday – to Adam and Eve, God gave the Seventh-day Saturday Sabbath to the whole human race.
Furthermore, neither Jesus nor the Israelites were “Jews.” The word “Jew” never appears in the Bible. It has been mistranslated from the word “Judean.” The word Judean denotes a form of worship. The Israelites worshiped the true God whose presence resided in the temple in Jerusalem which was in Judea, as opposed to the “nations” – mistranslated Gentiles – who “knew not God” and worshiped many pagan gods.
The terms “Judean” and nations denoted a form of worship, not an ethnicity. The arbitrary mistranslation of these words into “Jew” and “Gentile” was a deliberate attempt by the translators to mislead the reader into thinking of them falsely as ethnic terms.
Judaism did not begin until long after Christ was crucified – until after the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. – and the Pharisees wrote down the false doctrines previously referred to as the “traditions” that “made the Word of God of none effect” – the “traditions” of the Pharisees that Jesus so strongly rebuked. When committed to writing, these books were then called the Jewish Talmud. That was the beginning of Judaism!
4) I keep every day holy to the Lord: If that is true, then you cannot hold a job – ever! The Bible tells us clearly that we are not to work on the Sabbath, nor participate in regular activities, including recreational activities. The Sabbath is a day made holy by God, and set apart by God, for Him to spend the 24 day with us, a day in which we are to be totally focused on the Lord, studying His Word, studying His creation, learning to know Him up close and personally.
5) God doesn’t care which day we keep holy: To suggest that God doesn’t care which day we keep holy is to deny essentially the entire Word of God. Virtually all Christians believe that God “gave us a brain to figure things out.” But that’s not why God gave us a brain. God gave us a brain to be able to DO the things that HE has “figured out” – the things that HE directs us to do.
God makes the Plans, and God decides the Process by which His Plans are to be carried out. Our only job is to DO what HE tells us to do – to follow HIS Plans and HIS Procss - NOT to make our own Plans. God does NOT want us to “figure things out for ourselves.” He is our Teacher.
“One is your Teacher, the Christ.” (text)
The Tabernacle in the Wilderness
A perfect illustration is God’s directions to Moses and the Israelites regarding how God wanted them to build His Sanctuary.
God gives highly specific directions, all the way down to the loops of the curtains, and the fasteners for the boards. Fifteen chapters in Exodus are necessary to commit God’s orders to writing: Chapters 25 through 39. God cares about – and commands – every little detail of the building of the sanctuary, the garments to be worn by the priests (down to the last tassel and bell on the hem), and the sanctuary service. Nothing was left to Moses or any other Israelite “to figure out for himself.” God gave ALL the orders. It was the job of Moses and the Israelites to carry out God’s commands.
We will read just one of those chapters, Chapter 26, to impress on our minds how much God cares about every little detail and how much He intends for us to follow His orders implicitly. We begin with Exodus 26:1.
15 And thou shalt make boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood standing up.
16 Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the breadth of one board.
18 And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards on the south side southward.
20 And for the second side of the tabernacle on the north side there shall be twenty boards:
21 And their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board.
22 And for the sides of the tabernacle westward thou shalt make six boards.
23 And two boards shalt thou make for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides.
26 And thou shalt make bars of shittim wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle,
28 And the middle bar in the midst of the boards shall reach from end to end.
34 And thou shalt put the mercy seat upon the ark of the testimony in the most holy place.
I challenge anyone to embrace, much less promote, the idea that God “doesn’t care what we do, or what day we keep holy!”
The Ark built by Noah: Second illustration
When God told Noah to build the ark, God did NOT leave up to Noah the architectural drawings, nor the process by which it was to be built. God made the Plans and God designated the Process. God instructed Noah regarding the type of wood, the length, width and height of the ark, where the windows were to be placed, and every other specific of its construction. Noah’s only job was to accomplish the orders God gave him.
Noah was NOT allowed to “figure out for himself” how the Ark was to be built. Nor was Noah allowed to consult any human boat builders, no matter how “expert” they may have been. If Noah had not followed God’s orders precisely, the Ark would have sunk and Noah and his family would have drowned.
Journey of the Israelites through the Wilderness: Third Illustration
The Israelites were not allowed to decide the route of their journey through the wilderness. Nor was Moses. It was God who decided – every single day of their journey – the route the Israelites were to take for Forty Years – symbolic for the adult life of a man, who, according to biblical principles, becomes a man at age 30. The addition of 30 years to reach maturity, and 40 years of adulthood, adds up to 70, the average biblical lifespan of a man after 6,000 years of sin: “four score and ten.”
God’s presence in the cloud rested over the sanctuary by day, giving “air conditioning” to the Israelites in the heat of the desert. God’s presence in the “pillar of fire” resting over the sanctuary by night, gave them warmth during cold desert nights. Only when the cloud or pillar of fire rose up from resting over the sanctuary, were the Israelites to prepare to move to another place. Where were they going? God never told them their immediate destination. He just said, in essence, “Follow Me.” Follow My cloud. Follow My pillar of fire.
God led them one day at a time, to where He wanted them to go, not where they wanted to go. Neither Moses nor the Israelites made any decisions of their own during the forty years in the wilderness, other than to follow what God directed them to do.
God gave them – and us – a brain, not to make our own decisions, but to follow God’s directions in everything in our life.
“But how can I Know what God wants me to do?”
Hearing God’s voice is not automatic. One must be “tuned” to God’s voice, almost like tuning a radio dial, something that takes diligent Bible study, fervent prayer, obedience to everything you already know, and an open mind to New Light from God and His Word.
God speaks in a “still, small voice” as Elijah realized. God does not shout at us. When speaking to Elijah, God was not in the fire, He was not in the whirlwind, He was not in the earthquake. (1 Kings 9:11) In order to hear God’s voice we must “Be still” (Psalm 46:10) and spend time alone with God every day, away from the hustle and bustle of life, cacophony that is getting louder every day with the massive increase in technology, social networking, and continuous distracting music that fills every part of almost everyone’s day.
How many times does God tell us to Keep the Seventh-day, Saturday Holy?
In what should be in the very FIRST chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, God tells us He has set the Seventh-day Sabbath apart for a memorial to His Creation of us, of the world, and everything in it. And HE made it holy.
Unfortunately, those clearly Uninspired people who added chapters and verses to the Bible hundreds of years after it was originally written in prose, by those directly inspired by God, took the last 3 verses of the Creation story out of Genesis, Chapter 1, and placed them as verse 1-3 of Chapter 2, thus attempting to separate the Seventh-day, Saturday, Sabbath from the story of Creation.
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them
And on the Seventh day God ended His work which He had made: and He rested (literal “stopped”) on the seventh day from all His work (because it was completely perfect, nothing more needed to be done) which He had made.
“And God blessed the Seventh day, and sanctified it (made it holy), because that in it He had rested (stopped) from all His work which God created and made.” Genesis 2:1-3
It was GOD, Himself, who made the Saturday Sabbath holy. How does “man” think he has any right to change that day?
In Exodus 20, in the heart of the Ten Commandments, God again reminds us of the Seventh-day Sabbath:
“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
“Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work:
“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
“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 (made it holy),. Ex 20:8-11
Again, in Exodus 31: 12-18, God commands His followers to keep His Seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday) holy:
“ And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
“Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.
“Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that person shall be cut off from among his people.
“Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
“Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
“It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for the eons: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
“And He (God) gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of
Communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Ex 31:12-18
And here again in Exodus 34:21 God says:
“Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: at plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.” Ex 34:21
And again in Exodus, Chapter 35:
“And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, “These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them.
“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work there in shall be put to death.” Ex 35:1-2
Leviticus 23:
“Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings:” Lev 23:3
The Sabbath is a memorial to Re-creation: being delivered from the bondage of sin - Deuteronomy 5:
Keep the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.
“Six days thou shalt labor, and do all thy work:
“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.
“And remember that thou was a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” Deut 5:12-15
Isaiah 58:
“If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
“Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isaiah 58:14
And in the New Testament, Jesus, Himself, kept the Sabbath:
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath
“For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.” Matt 12:8
The Sabbath was made for man:
“And Jesus said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath:
“Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27,28
How many times does God have to tell us to keep the Sabbath holy? And how can any individual Christian or Christian denomination, or Christian church, or Christian pastor believe they have the right to keep a different day from the day God, Himself, has made holy?
Jesus Kept the Seventh-day Sabbath – Saturday - holy
And Jesus showed us by His own example of keeping the Sabbath holy.
How can anyone even suggest that God doesn’t care which day we keep?
What does it mean then to blaspheme the name of God?
“It means to reproach the name of God and slander His character. Since the character of God is associated with His name, it stands to reason that if one reproaches the name of God, one is reproaching the character of God. God takes His reputation seriously and does not appreciate having it damaged by careless words, so it seems likely that He is insulted by such acts. To reproach the name of God is to take upon oneself the prerogatives that clearly belong to God alone, for one is clearly saying that a person need not worry about the consequences of such behavior. This implies that a person (or power) evidently considers oneself of more importance than God. He can safely be ignored in their thinking. This makes them into a god, consciously or unconsciously.
“Question: Because the law of God describes His character, how do you commit blasphemy in relation to the law of God? Answer: By claiming to be able to change it at will! This is blaspheming the name of God because a power doing this is claiming they are a god in their own right and don't need to answer to the true God. This happens because the power believes they are an equal to God. It damages God's character because it alters His law, which is a description of what He is like. If one law can be changed, then any of them can be changed. This means that if a power wants to and claims the power to change God's laws, murder could become legal under God's law. Do you want that? Do you want theft to become legal? Think about this when you hear certain religious powers proclaim that they have changed some of God's law. They are proclaiming that they have the right to change ANY of God's laws. Do you really believe that God would given them such power when God says the following about Himself?
The Churches, both Catholic and Protestant, have effectively taken over the functions of Jesus. By doing this, they blaspheme God in heaven in several ways:
. They substitute the ministry of their priests and even ministers, for that of Jesus as the intermediary between God and man .
. They claim to be able to forgive sins against God's laws, at least Catholics and Lutherans do .
. They all claim the power to change the law of God and claim they have actually done it by changing the Sabbath commandment to their own in which one is to worship on Sunday instead of the seventh-day Sabbath God instituted (God has never authorized a change and indicates that he does not change). Both Catholics and Lutherans dropped the second commandment against image worship and split another commandment to make a total of 10. The original law of God has NOT changed and is still in force. .
They substitute themselves as the authority of God in the lives of people so that people worship them – and the church – deluding themselves into thinking they are worshiping God.
http://www.666man.net/frequently-asked-questions.html
The Organized Church is the “Golden Calf.”
In the wilderness, the Israelites became tired of waiting for Moses who spent 40 days on Mount Sinai talking with God. So they approached Aaron, Moses’ brother, to make them an idol that would, to them, “represent” God.
“While Moses was up on the mountain receiving God’s laws, the people were getting anxious down on the plain. Moses spent forty days (Exodus 24:18) up on the mountain with God, and by the end of that time, the people were beginning to think Moses had died or left them. The people urged Aaron, their temporary leader, to make gods for them to follow. Since they were accustomed to having visual representations of gods, this was the natural (but sinful) result of their thinking. Aaron took their gold earrings, which they had brought from Egypt, and melted them down to make a golden idol. The idol he crafted for them was a calf, but Aaron maintained the name of the Lord in connection with it (Exodus 32:5). He was merging the pagan practices they were familiar with and the worship of the God they were just beginning to be re-acquainted with. Aaron called the people together and told them that the golden calf was the god who delivered them from Egypt. The people offered sacrifices and then engaged in pagan rituals, including orgies (Exodus 32:25) to worship this new god.
Why did Aaron do this? Scripture doesn’t give us the full answer, but we can put certain clues together and get a fairly good picture. First, the people’s long familiarity with idol worship would incline them to follow that method in the absence of clear direction otherwise. It is likely that the people had not yet received the commands against idol worship, since Moses was yet to come down with the tablets of the law. Second, they were already in the habit of merging their beliefs with those of the people around them, a practice that would continue to plague them throughout the kingdom years. Third, Aaron was faced with an unruly crowd that placed a demand on him. The solution of making an idol and calling it by God's name seemed fairly reasonable.
Why did he choose a calf/bull? His lame excuse to Moses—“It just came out of the fire like this!” Exodus 32:24)—was just a feeble attempt to dodge blame. He fashioned it with a graving tool (Exodus 32:4) and took great care to form it that way. Some have tried to show that the bull represented one of the gods of Egypt, but that doesn’t fit the text, because Aaron called a feast to the Lord (Yahweh) and said that it was the god(s) which brought them out of the land of Egypt. The bull was a symbol of strength and fertility, and the people were already familiar with bull gods from Egypt. Bulls were also typical animals of sacrifice, so to use their image as a symbol of the god being worshiped was a natural connection. Aaron’s bull was a mixture of the powerful God who delivered the people through mighty works and the pagan methods of worship that were borrowed from the people around them.
Even though there are reasonable explanations for why Aaron and the people began to worship the golden calf, those explanations do not excuse the sin. God certainly held the people accountable for their corruption (Exodus 32:7–10) and was ready to destroy them for their sin. Moses’ personal intercession on behalf of his people saved them. Moses indicated that Aaron at least should have known that his actions were sinful (Exodus 32:21) and didn’t let him off the hook. As with any other sin, the punishment is death, and the only proper response is repentance. Moses called for those who were on the Lord’s side to come stand with him (Exodus 32:26). The Levites stood with him and were commanded to go through the camp and kill anyone who persisted in the idolatry. Three thousand men were killed that day. The next day, Moses went up and confessed the people’s sins before God, asking for His forgiveness. God declared that the guilty ones would yet pay with their own deaths and be blotted out of His book. These were the same ones who, on the verge of entering the Promised Land, would deny God’s promises and be sent into the wilderness to die for their sins. Their children would be the ones to receive God’s promised blessings.
Their experiences are a lesson to us today. Even though we might justify our actions through reason or logic, if we are violating God’s clear commands, we are sinning against Him, and He will hold us accountable for those sins.
http://www.gotquestions.org/golden-calf.html
The Organized Church of today IS the
“Golden Calf” of the Israelites in the WildernessChristians worship the “church” rather than worshiping God
Even though the vast majority of Christians will disagree with this statement, today’s Christians worship the “church” rather than worshiping God. They follow the doctrines of the “church” rather than the doctrines of God’s Word.
They “keep holy” the day the “church” tells them to “keep holy” rather than the day God has made Holy – Himself. And they obey and embrace all the other false doctrines of the Organized Churches, including 1) a literal hellfire in which God will torture His children, 2) the false doctrine that one goes to heaven when he dies, 3) the false doctrine of the “Holy Spirit” being a “person”
They have a personal relationship with the “church” rather than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
They believe in the “church” more than they believe in the Word of God, because they believe the church’s interpretation of the Word of God rather than studying for themselves, with God as their teacher.
They work for the “church” – they do what the “church” directs them to do - rather than allowing God to direct each of them personally.
The Organized Church has become the “golden calf” – an idol considered to “represent” God to the present-day Christians.
Who started the “Organized Church”?
It certainly wasn’t God. If God had wanted people to join an organization led by “man” where the people would come once a week to sit down in a building and listen to “man” tell them what to believe about God, He would have started that with the Israelites in the wilderness.
But both the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple in Jerusalem were small structures: 450 square feet – the size of a small, one bedroom apartment. In the wilderness, the Bible tells us there were close to 2 million Israelites. Obviously, they couldn’t fit into a tiny structure like that.
Furthermore, God forbid anyone except the priests from entering into the Tabernacle – under penalty of Death!
The temple in Jerusalem, where God’s presence resided, was also off limits to the Israelites, except for the priests. This was the command of God. No one was allowed to enter the temple except the priests.
Who set up the Counterfeit Religion?
It was the Pharisees who started the synagogues - buildings were people came in and sat down to hear “man” tell the people what to believe about God. These synagogues first appeared in the New Testament and are a witness to the abject apostasy into which the Israelite nation had fallen. A counterfeit religion had been set up. God’s presence was in the Temple. God’s presence was NOT in the synagogues.
Jesus called the Pharisees the “synagogue of Satan.” And it was the Pharisees who called for the execution of Jesus Christ.
Yet, today, the churches of all denominations in Organized Religion have used as their model the synagogue system that was founded and perpetrated by those who called for the murder of the Son of God – Jesus Christ. Christians go into a building, sit down, and listen to “man” tell them what to believe about Jesus Christ.
But the Bible tells us that we don’t need “man” to teach us.
“. . . and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” 1 John 2:27
“Neither be ye called teacher: for One is your Teacher - - Christ.” Matt 23:10
Jesus Christ is our Teacher. We must study diligently, praying fervently, and letting Jesus Christ lead us into “all truth.”
“Howbeit when He, the spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into ALL truth. . .” John 16:13
Christianity is NOT a religion: it is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It needs none of the accoutrements of buildings, clergy, hierarchy, or rituals. God is our Father, and we are His children.
“And ye shall be My people, and I will be your God.” Jer 30:22; Ez 36:28
Conclusion:
God’s commands are very specific; He expects us to follow them explicitly. He makes the Plans and it’s our job to follow His directions – not to make our own plans.
The Organized Church has become the “Golden Calf” of today’s Christians. Christians have been deceived into worshiping it and following it – thinking they are worshiping Jesus Christ.
Not much has changed in the last 2,000 years.
The Pharisees chastised Jesus for allowing His disciples to pluck the heads of grain as they passed through the fields on the Sabbath. They believed that the temple and the Sabbath day ritual were more important than God Himself. Jesus responded:
“Have you not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple (appear to)profane the Sabbath, but are blameless?
“But I say unto you, That in this place is One greater than the temple.” Matt 12:5,6
As Jesus was departing from the temple,
“His disciples came to Him to show Him (the beauty of) the buildings of the temple.”
“And Jesus said unto them, “See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.” Matt 24:1,2
As the End Times draw near, the organized churches will be completely dismantled and destroyed before the Second Coming of Christ. The goal of the agents of the Adversary is to eliminate Christ, Christians and all vestiges of Christianity from the earth before Jesus comes again.
Just as the Communist Jews destroyed all the Christian churches in the U.S.S.R. during the Bolshevik revolution, so will the Communist Jews who control the U.S.A. and the rest of the world, destroy ALL the Christian churches, and attempt to destroy ALL true Christians.
All that will be left of Christianity will be a small group of true Christians who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ – not a relationship with a “church.”