Commandment keeping and Christians

She went on to say she wanted more biblical proof that we should obey God's Ten Commandments, especially the command to worship God on the day He says we should.

I liked her attitude of skepticism. The Bible says we should "prove all things."

It is indeed hard to shake false teachings which have been ingrained in us all of our lives. Many false ministers have done a very clever job – of twisting primarily the writings of the Apostle Paul – to make it sound as if we do not have to keep God's Commandments. Peter rightly said of Paul's writings, "in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16).

They basically try to twist the following two areas of Paul's writings into saying that keeping the Law of God is not necessary; those scriptures in which Paul spoke of animal sacrifices being replaced by the much greater sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and those scriptures in which he spoke of grace and forgiveness for past sins. However, Paul made it clear that he did not intend to imply that commandment keeping is no longer necessary: "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters" (1 Corinthians 7:19).

Years later – after Paul and all the other original apostles had been martyred – the Apostle John, now the earthly leader of the New Testament church, continued to teach obedience to God's law right up until his death. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments" (1 John 5:2).

John went on to say, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (v. 3). "And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John 3:22).

False teachers, who claim to represent Christ and claim to "know God," while teaching by their words or their lifestyles that we don't have to obey all ten of the commandments, are condemned in God's word: "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:3-4). The idea that we do not have to keep the Ten Commandments of God is simply untrue. (For a fuller understanding of God's law, read our booklet The Ten Commandments.)

The fourth commandment makes plain that Saturday, not Sunday, is God's day of worship: "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work" (Exodus 20:10). Both Protestants and Catholics proudly proclaim that they keep the first day of the week, Sunday. Their leaders acknowledge that Saturday is the seventh day. Jesus kept the seventh day Sabbath. Paul kept the seventh day Sabbath and taught gentile converts to keep it. It is sin to transgress the Sabbath command or any of the other commandments, because, "sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4 KJV).

Jesus' own brother, the Apostle James, pastor of the headquarters church at Jerusalem, ruled out non-Sabbath-keepers as being true followers of Christ when he said, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2: 10). If we break any of the commandments we are sinners in God's eyes, and considered guilty of violating the complete package of commandments. Commandment breaking is sin. We are told in the New Testament to repent of sinning!

Always remember: even if a thousand commandment-breaking false prophets swear it isn't so, they cannot refute the plain words of Jesus: "But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments" (Matthew 19:17). If you will not believe Christ, why call yourself Christian?