In one area of doctrine Mormons have been resting comfortably for the past one-and-a-half centuries. They have not been too purturbed about it because in this they are in complete agreement with the bulk of Orthodox Christianity. When it comes to disagreements with smaller branches of the Body of Christ Mormons, as a rule, do not pay too much attention to them because for the most part they are more interested in waging war with those who threaten them the most: the overwhelming majority of Catholics and Protestants. Every time I have brought this up on major Mormon Discussion Boards on the Internet I have been politely ignored or rudely scolded. "Since the vast bulk of Christendom believe in this doctrine, and since 10 million Mormons too, then obviously we must be right," is the attitude that I get. Conveniently Mormons forget, though, that where they are in a tiny majority, they do not care too much about the consensus view. And had truth been established by consensus, then Mormonism would manifestly be untrue.

The issue of which I speak - the Sabbath Day - is, however, attracting more and more attention in orthodox circles where finally, unfettered by the threat of state churches, the truth is shining forth. There are now many millions of 'orthodox' Christians who reject the Sunday Sabbath doctrine, and they are growing at a phenomenal rate. These are not, moreover, just Seventh Day Adventists or Messianic Jews, but every shade of Christian imaginable. And even though they have not yet understood what the Biblical Sabbath day is, they have started to see through the Sunday lie.

Two of Joseph Smith's revelation's address the Sabbath Day question. The first, received on 7 August 1831, confirmed that on the "Lord's day", universally regarded by Christians of that day as being Sunday, should be used to "offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High ... and on this day thou shalt do no other thing ..." (LDS D&C 59:12-13/RLDS 59:2-3).

Throughout it's entire history, the Mormon Church has observed Sunday as the "Lord's Day". Indeed, practically every Mormon denomination has, including the next largest, the Reorganized Church (Community of Christ). A subsequent Smith revelation states: "... and the inhabitants of Zion shall also observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy" (LDS D&C 68:29/RLDS 68:4). As the two sections of the Doctrine & Covenants stand, who am I to quarrel with such biblically accurate pronouncements? The Lord's Day or Sabbath Day are indeed holy and to be used differently from the other six days of the week. This was a creation ordinance even predating the Law of Moses - an ordinanace that was never revoked by Christ. The Sabbath Day, which not only was never on a Roman Sunday or even on a Roman Saturday, but not on any regular Roman day at all! The Bible uses an entirely different calendar to the one ordained by Yahweh in the Bible, and the Mormons and their 'prophets' don't have a clue about it because they're not inspired - it's called the Creation Calendar, the Sabbath Day being tied to the moon.

In every Mormon commentary that I have read the easily refutable errors of Catholicism are repeated. Bruce R. McConkie in his widely acclaimed and used Mormon Doctrine, states: "From the days of the early apostles to the present, the Sabbath has been the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, in commemoration nof the fact that Christ came forth from the grave on Sunday (Acts 20:7). The Latter-day Saints keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath, not in imitation of what any peoples of the past have done, but because the Lord so commanded them by direct revelation (D&C 59)" (Mormon Doctrine, Deseret, 1966 edn., p.658).

McConkie is absolutely right when he says: "Sabbath observance was a sign between ancient Israel and their God whereby the chosen people might be known (Neh.13:15-22; Isa.56:1-8; Jer.17:19-27; Ezek.46:1-7) ... And the matter of Sabbath observance remains to this day one of the great tests which divides the righteous from the worldly and the wicked" (Ibid.).

The Roman Sunday was never observed as the 'Sabbath Day' by the apostles. Not once. And had they tried to change the Sabbath Day from the Luni-Solar Sabbath to the Roman Sunday, the Jews would have seized such a golden opportunity to cry 'apostate' and 'heretic'. As such, before the Roman Church changed it, Jews never levelled charges against the first Christians as Sabbath-breakers. Both Jews and New Testament Christians walked hand-in-hand in this matter.

In the few discussions I have been able to solicit from Mormon apologists on this question, they have misapplied all the usual scriptures, and once their very simple and easily refutable errors have been exposed, they have without exception resorted to silence, and comforted themselves in the knowledge that the bulk of Christendom supports them. They are, after all, principally after the 'big fish', and don't want to antagonise the orthodox Christians in those areas of doctrine with which they agreed because of their anxiety to be accepted as "Christians". The Bible and history, however, do not support them one iota. I have proved elsewhere on this website that the Sabbath day was never changed and that the apostles faithfully observed the Hebrew Luni-Solar Sabbath from sunrise to sunrise and taught their talmidim (disciples) to do the same.

Since the very day of their inception in 1830 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its prophets whom Mormons follow blindly have perpetuated an error of the Roman Catholic Church. Worse from their point-of-view, the god of Mormonism has perpetuated the same error in the Doctrine & Covenants - either the god of Mormonism doesn't know what the true Sabbath is (most unlikely) or he has perpetrated a lie to keep the Mormons in bondage. For as McConkie himself says, "Sabbath observance remains to this day as one of the great tests which divides the righteous from the worldly and wicked".

McConkie further states: "Sunday, being the Lord's Day, it is a day on which men should do the Lord's work, and do it exclusively. There should be no unnecessary work of a temporal nature, no recreation, no unnecessary travel, no joy riding, and the like. The Sabbath day is for affirmative spiritual worship ..." (Ibid., pp.658-9). How bitterly ironic that the Mormon people have been thoroughly breaking the Luni-Solar Sabbath par excellence and worshipping their god on the pagan Day of the Sun since 1830! And how utterly hypocritcial that the Mormons, who accuse the rest of Christendom of being apostate and lacking in authority, demonstrate their own disobedience, ignorance, lack of apostolic authority and apostate condition by consistently disobeying the Fourth Commandment!

In this, and a number of other matters, the Mormons have copied the unscriptural and apostate practices of the Catholics and, ultimately, the heathen. Satan, knowing that true Sabbath observance is a test of the righteous, has succeeded through the dictation of his fallen Nefilim angels, created a book of latter-day scripture full of pernicious errors, the Doctrine & Covenants. Of this I shall say more in the following essays.

Instead of retoring the true Luni-Solar Sabbath as they ought as a
professed 'Restoration' movement, Mormons have simply uncritically
perpetuated Rome's own Sunday Sabbath error and claimed
revelation that contradicts the Bible in order to do so

First edition, 11 March 2001
Second edition, 13 January 2013

Updated on 3 November 2022

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