Many Christians love to say “Happy Lord’s Day” on Sunday as a greeting of blessing to other believers. However, is the LORD’s Day really Sunday? Is celebrating the LORD’s Day a blessing?
Sunday as the LORD’s Day
When Yeshua walked on this earth, he said in Matthew 12:8 and Mark 2:28, “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” From these two passages, the ‘Lord’s day’ has to be the Sabbath. At the time Yeshua made these statements, he was referring to the seventh-day Sabbath. The word Sabbath has its Hebrew root in sheva or ‘seven’ and will always be the seventh day, not the first or the third or the second or whatever day suits personal choice.
The issue Yeshua was trying to convey was that people, not traditions of men, were given authority over Sabbath. This is why he also said, “Sabbath was created for man not man for the Sabbath.” The seventh-day Sabbath is the Elohim’s holy day given to mankind as a day of rest from creative, physical work. Yeshua, as the Son of Man, is Lord over the Sabbath and we are to follow him and his example in timing, rest, and obedience.
The LORD’s Day in Revelation 1:10
“On the LORD’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.”
Many interpret this as to mean that on the ‘first day of the week’, Sunday, the apostle John was in the Spirit. However, this inference comes from years of Christian catholic theology that changed the ‘sabbath to Sunday‘ and made the ‘first day of the week’ into ‘the Lord’s Day.’ It is important to remember when reading Revelation that John was a Jew and well-versed in the Hebrew language of the Hebrew Scriptures. To him the phrase en teé juriake´heem´ra (the Lord’s Day) would be what is known in by the prophets as “the Day of the LORD,” or the time of the coming destruction that brings forth the return of Messiah (Isaiah 13:6,9; Joel 1:15, 2:1,11,21; Amos 5:18).
There are two other little words in the passage that give a clue to the seasonal timing of the ‘day’. John heard a loud voice that sounded like a trumpet. Since the book of Revelation is about prophecy, to use the sound of the trumpet as a prophetic voice is appropriate. The Feast of Trumpets or Yom Teruah begins the ‘days of awe’ or the time for preparing for the LORD’s judgment of earth and its people.
John is told by the ‘trumpet voice’ to send messages to the seven churches in East Asia. These seven messages have warnings to the disobedient and blessings for those with ‘ears to hear’. These messages contain preparations for the ‘Day of the LORD‘ and are sent so the congregations will know the times and understand how to overcome spiritual battles and have victory in the Kingdom.
Still, some Christians perpetuate the the Lord’s Day as Sunday, but this is really the result of ignorance . The change from a seventh-day Sabbath to a ‘first day of the week’ memorial to the resurrection was not done by Yeshua or the apostles, but created by the Roman catholic church and Constantine that had an anti-semitic view of the Jewish people. This unfortunate manmade change brings misunderstanding and misconceptions to the prophetic revelation given to John regarding the events of the Day of the LORD and the return of the Messiah of Israel to rule on earth. The real blessing of The LORD’s Day is not about having a great Sun-day, but to read the book of Revelation and the prophecy it contains.
“The revelation of Messiah Yeshua, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Messiah Yeshua. Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near” (Revelation 1:1-3).
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