Why was Ellen White so passionate about keeping the seventh day of the week holy?
Does God consider one day of the week more special than the others? How are we to remember the Lord's Day?
Some readers of Ellen White find it difficult to understand why Ellen White viewed the
keeping of the seventh day as an issue of loyalty to God. Could it be that she was confused
about the origin of the day of worship? Is it true that the solemnity of the seventh day has
been transfered to the first day of the week?
The Seventh Day video documentary answers these questions and much more—and it may now be watched online,
using the links below.
If God considers one day of the week more special than the others?
This part of The Seventh Day: Revelations from the Lost
Pages of History video series looks back to the earliest written records of
our race to discover the foundations of human time. Host Hal Holbrook unravels
the mystery of our origins and shows how the seven-day week ties us to our
origins.
The Seventh Day series will challenge the way you
think about life, God, and the universe.
Chapters on this video:
1. Origins
Views of human beginnings from Babylonian and Aztec
myths as well as from the Bible and the Koran.
2. The Evolution Explanation
Darwin's theory of evolution challenges traditional
view of origins.
3. Beyond Chance
A case against blind chance as a logical explanation
of human origins.
4. Intelligent Designer
The Bible's portrayal of the Creation and the Creator.
5. The Architecture of Time
The week and the seventh day in the structure of human life.
6. Point of Contact
The weekly Sabbath in man's relationship with God.
7. A Day for All Mankind
The universal and perpetual purpose for the weekly day
of rest.
8. Unholy Sabbath
National disaster strikes the "chosen
people" due, in part, to their neglect of the Sabbath.
9. The Sabbath Around the World
Somehow the concept of the Sabbath extended into the
culture and language of many peoples.
10. Reform
A revival of Sabbath observance among the Jews who
returned from exile results in heroism and tragedy.
Part 2: The Saturday-Sunday Tension in the Early Christian Church
Did you know that . . .
Church leaders conspired to kill Jesus Christ when He broke their Sabbath rules?
Early Christians kept Saturday as the Sabbath for hundreds of years?
Roman sun worship led to Christians worshiping on Sunday?
Part two of The Seventh Day video series exposes the
political and religious intrigue behind the Saturday-Sunday controversy in the
early Christian church.
Hal Holbrook, in his intimate and captivating style, weaves
little-known historical data and expert testimony into a tapestry of compelling
truth.
The Seventh Day series is a powerful and provocative
look at a timely and explosive topic.
Chapters on this video:
1. Religion in Rome
A summary view of Roman religions during the time of
Jesus.
2. The Jewish Sabbath
Strict Sabbathkeeping marked the Jews as unique.
3. The Sabbath Reformer
The Bible portrays Jesus as a revolutionary
Sabbathkeeper.
4. Prophecy
Jesus predicted that His followers would be still be
keeping the Sabbath at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
5. Christians and Jews
The two groups shared a view of a personal God and of
the weekly Sabbath, but Christians found new meaning in the holy day.
6. The Christian Sabbath
There is clear evidence for Christian observance of the
seventh-day Sabbath in the first century AD.
7. Sundaykeepers
Second-century Christians in Alexandria and Rome begin
observing the first day of the week instead of the Sabbath.
8. The Day of the Sun
Roman sun worship and its link to Christian Sunday
observance.
9. Sunday Law
Emperor Constantine legalizes Sunday as the weekly day
of rest in the Roman Empire.
10. The Sabbath Survives
Proof of seventh-day (Saturday) Sabbath observance
into the middle of the fourth century.
Ireland's famous St. Patrick was neither Irish nor Catholic?
The Pope was excommunicated for promoting fasting on the seventh-day Sabbath?
A "letter from heaven" threatened supernatural punishments for failing to keep Sunday holy?
In part three of The Seventh-day series, Hal Holbrook
tells about the battle over the seventh-day Sabbath in medieval times. It is a
story riddled with fakes and forgeries, warped by legend and propaganda, and
steeped in the schemes of patriarchs, popes, and kings.
With the testimony of experts from England, Scotland, and
the United States, part three of this five-part series presents new "Revelations
from the Lost Pages of History."
Chapters on this video:
1. Celtic Christianity
The religious background to the story of St. Patrick.
2. The Real Patrick
Once a slave in Ireland, Patrick responds to a divine
call and returns to the Emerald Isle as a missionary.
3. Celtic Sabbath
Evidence that Saturday was observed as the Sabbath by Celtic Christians.
4. Margaret of Scotland
Margaret comes from England, marries King Malcolm, and
attempts to reform Sunday observance in Scotland.
5. Assault on the Sabbath
The Church of Rome promotes the Sabbath (Saturday)
fast as an expression of anti-Jewish sentiments.
6. Power Struggle
The "Sabbath fast" becomes a key issue in
the rivalry between church leaders in Rome and Constantinople.
7. Deceptions
A "letter from heaven" threatens
Sunday-breakers.
8. Fight for Truth
Resistance to church/state authority brings tragedy.
9. John Wycliffe: Champion of Conscience
An Oxford professor focuses new attention on the Bible
as the supreme authority for Christian faith and practice.
10. The Lollards
Wycliffe's followers take his views throughout England
and beyond.
11. The Church vs. the Bible
The church-state establishment opposes the spread of
the Bible and the ideas of Wycliffe and the Lollards.
Part 4: Seventh-Day Observance During the Renaissance
Did you know that . . .
In Russia, Ivan Kuritsin and other Sabbath-keeping reformers were burned to death in Moscow's Red Square?
In Spain, Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, a prominent Roman Catholic priest, promoted the seventh-day Sabbath and died in an Inquisition prison?
In Slovakia, after surviving several hours at the end of a hangman's noose, Anabaptist leaders Andreas Fischer escaped to continue preaching the seventh-day Sabbath?
Part four of The Seventh Day spotlights the
resurgence of the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath in an era of religious upheaval—from the
spiritual revolution in the late fifteenth-century Russia, through the
religious uprising of the Protestants in the sixteenth century, to the radical
Sabbath revival of England in the seventeenth century.
Hal Holbrook and experts from around the world
uncover amazing but seldom-heard stories about God's special gift to the world—The
Seventh Day.
Chapters on this video:
1. Russian Reformation
This Sabbathkeeping movement reached the highest
levels of Russian society and led to fiery executions in Moscow's Red Square.
2. Sabbath vs. Sunday in Ethiopia
Jesuit missionaries succeeded in converting the
Emperor to Roman Catholicism, but attempts to quash Sabbath observance resulted
in civil war.
3. Inquisition
Civil and religious authorities united to root out
"heresy."
4. Purging the Church in Spain
Ferdinand and Isabella, the "Catholic Monarchs,"
used the Spanish Inquisition to rid their church of Jewish heresies.
5. Portugal Exports the Inquisition
Inquisitors carried their campaign of religious
persecution into the new territories of Portugal's expanding empire.
6. Authority: Sola Scriptura?
Protestant Reformers insisted on the authority of the
sacred Scriptures, while Catholic leaders defended their church's stand on
tradition.
7. Anabaptists
Persecuted by Protestants and Catholics alike, these
radical reformers stood for strict adherence to biblical teachings. Among them
were new champions of the Sabbath.
8. The Seventh-day Men
While many Puritan preachers insisted on strict
observance of Sunday, other prominent Englishmen called for a return to the
Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.
In 1665, Seventh Day Baptists first planted the doctrine of the seventh-day Sabbath in New England?
In 1742, a New York court fined German count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzindorf for violating Sunday protection laws?
In 1888, Senator Henry Blair proposed a national Sunday law that threatened religious liberty in the United States?
Part five of The Seventh Day: Revelations from the Lost
Pages of History blends history and current events to conclude the
chronicle of the seventh-day Sabbath. This is an epic story, worldwide in
scope, ranging from the Taiping revolutionaries in China to the millions of
indigenous Sabbatarians of Africa to the remote village of Paruima in South
America. It spans the centuries from Roger Williams' heroic stand for religious
liberty in seventeenth-century America to the crisis of conscience faced by
many of today's Sabbath-keepers.
In this final episode of The Seventh Day, Hal
Holbrook shares a twenty-first-century view of God's holy day and projects the
gift of Sabbath rest into the eternal future.
Chapters on this video:
1. Roger Williams and Religious Liberty
This nonconformist preacher established the Rhode
Island colony on the foundation of freedom of conscience for everybody.
2. To the New World
A Sabbathkeeping Baptist couple emigrate from England
to Rhode Island and help establish the first Seventh Day Baptist congregation
in America.
3. A Song in the Wilderness
Conrad Beisel and his followers establish a
Sabbathkeeping community on Pennsylvania's Cocalico Creek — the Ephrata
Coister.
4. A Voice from Germany
Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf directs the Moravian
mission to the North American Indians and inspires his community to keep the
seventh-day Sabbath.
5. Advent Movement
A Seventh Day Baptist lady shares her Sabbath beliefs
with her pastor, and this leads to the establishment of the Seventh-day
Adventist church.
6. Kingdom of Heavenly Peace
19th-century China is shaken by the Taiping
Revolution, a huge peasant revolt that is shaped, in part, by bibical
principles including observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.
7. Eskimo Prophet
In Alaska's Kobuk River valley a man named Maniilaq
learns about "seventh-day resting" from one he calls "the
Grandfather."
8. The Shining One
Deep in the South American rain forest Chief Owkwa
learns about the Sabbath from a bright celestial visitor.
9. Africa
The Sabbath's deep cultural roots in various parts of
the African continent.
10. Saving Sunday
The secularization of Sunday in 19th-century America
leads some political and religious leaders to promote laws that would protect
Sunday as the national day of rest and worship.
11. Sabbath on Trial
People who observe Saturday rather than Sunday as
their weekly day of worship sometimes face financial hardship and legal trouble
because of their beliefs.
12. People of the Sabbath
Although still a small minority, seventh-day
Sabbathkeepers are increasing in number around the world.
13. Challenges
Sabbathkeeping theologians respond to critics who
contend that observing the seventh-day Sabbath is legalistic or irrelevant for
Christians today..
14. Eternal Sabbath
Bible prophecy points to the Sabbath as part of God's
plan for a perfect world in the eternal future.
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