The Sermons of John Wesley - Sermon 25 Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount: Discourse Five (The Ten Commandments the Moral Law)

I. 1. And First, "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

The ritual or ceremonial law, delivered by Moses to the children of Israel, containing all the injunctions and ordinances which related to the old sacrifices and service of the temple, our Lord indeed did come to destroy, to dissolve, and utterly abolish. To this bear all the Apostles witness; not only Barnabas and Paul, who vehemently withstood those who taught that Christians ought "to keep the law of Moses;" (Acts 15:5;) not only St. Peter, who termed the insisting on this, on the observance of the ritual law, a "tempting God," and "putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers," saith he, "nor we, were able to bear;" but all the Apostles, elders, and brethren, being assembled with one accord, (Acts 15:22,) declared, that to command them to keep this law, was to "subvert their souls;" and that "it seemed good to the Holy Ghost" and to them, to lay no such burden upon them. (Acts 15:28.) This "hand-writing of ordinances" our Lord did blot out, take away, and nail to His cross.

2. But the moral law, contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away.

Continued:

It was not the design of His coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken, which stands fast as the faithful witness in heaven. The moral stands on an entirely different foundation from the ceremonial or ritual law, which was only designed for a temporary restraint upon a disobedient and stiff-necked people; whereas this was from the beginning of the world, being "written not on tables of stone," but on the hearts of all the children of men, when they came out of the hands of the Creator. And, however the letters once wrote by the finger of God are now in a great measure defaced by sin, yet can they not wholly be blotted out, while we have any consciousness of good and evil. Every part of this law must remain in force, upon all mankind, and in all ages; as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other.

III. 1. "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Who, what are they that make "the preaching of the law" a character of reproach Do they not see on whom their reproach must fall, -- on whose head it must light at last Whosoever on this ground despiseth us, despiseth Him that sent us. For did ever any man preach the law like Him, even when he came not to condemn but to save the world; when he came purposely to "bring life and immortality to light through the gospel" Can any preach the law more expressly, more rigorously, than Christ does in these words And who is he that shall amend them Who is he that shall instruct the Son of God how to preach Who will teach Him a better way of delivering the message which He hath received of the Father

2. "Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments," or one of the least of these commandments. -- "These commandments," we may observe, is a term used by our Lord as equivalent with the law, or the law and the Prophets, -- which is the same thing, seeing the Prophets added nothing to the law, but only declared, explained, or enforced it, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

"Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments," especially if it be done wilfully or presumptuously: -

John Wesley, a giant of a man of God. This Protestant clearly understood the difference between the moral law and the ceremonial law.

He was a Sunday keeping English reformer who founded the Methodist Church. He kept Sunday as the Lord’s day. The wrong day...in the right way. I believe God honored those people back then.

That’s when Protestants and Catholics understood the difference between the Mosaic Ceremonial laws written by Moses in a book...and God’s moral law written by God in stone.

What God separated back then...Poor Bible Scholarship has joined together today. And that is why Christians mostly don’t keep even Sunday anymore. Now look at society.

Moody said when the holy day goes, the church goes, when the church goes the family goes and when the family goes, society goes and the demons rule. Look around...the demons are ruling.

Wesley worshipped on Sunday, as do his followers to this day.

But I thought Sunday worship was the mark of the beast ... and imposed upon bleeding, apostate Christendom by the vicious, antichrist, Papacy and all its minions (or something like that)?

Which is it? You guys cherry-pick relentlessly from the parts of Christianity you like. You use a New Testament declared to be canonical by three local councils of Catholic bishops and a Papal decree in the late 4th and early 5th century. You call yourself "Protestants" but neatly gloss over the Reformers' hatred of salvation by works and legalism, while being thoroughly legalistic. You hold up a Sunday-worshipping Protestant divine as a good guy when he would not have any use for you at all.

It's Tinker Toy Christianity ... we pick up the pieces we like and build our "church" out of it ... a little bit of kosher here, a little bit of Sabbath-keeping there, a little bit of Lutheranism over there ... a little bit of JW-ism here ... and stick it all together with the wonderous superglue of anti-Catholicism, and voila, it's a church!

Or is it? You deserve something better. God wants you to have something better. God, not Ellen G. White, died on a Cross to give you something better.

_____Wesley worshipped on Sunday, as do his followers to this day.
But I thought Sunday worship was the mark of the beast ... and imposed upon bleeding, apostate Christendom by the vicious, antichrist, Papacy and all its minions (or something like that)?____

The mark of the beast is religious intolerance. To persecute and hate those who disagree with you. To compel and force and impose your beliefs upon others even using the state to impose your will.

I’ll let you figure out who that will be and how it will be done in the end. Including laws mandating a universal day of worship.

A Sabbath keeping church , the largest in the world but tiny compared to the biggest Sunday church does not believe a law should mandate a day of rest nor does it persecute anyone who does not agree with the Sabbath.

Uh....then there’s the Catechism. I suggest you go a little deeper than simply a day when it comes to the mark of the beast.

Who is your authority? God or a church.

Section 2188 of the Catechism and we aren’t even in the time of trouble yet. Jesus sees the Sabbath when? In the time of trouble.....Matthew 24.

Let’s get smarter and not be so stupid and ignorant. Thank you.

Section 2188, the Holy See, the Catechsim:

2188 In respecting religious liberty and the common good of all, Christians should seek recognition of Sundays and the Church’s holy days as legal holidays. They have to give everyone a public example of prayer, respect, and joy and defend their traditions as a precious contribution to the spiritual life of society. If a country’s legislation or other reasons require work on Sunday, the day should nevertheless be lived as the day of our deliverance which lets us share in this “festal gathering,” this “assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.

___The mark of the beast is religious intolerance.
..

Yikes____

Revelation 13:17

“and that no one may buy or sell except one who has [a]the mark or the name of the beast....”.

yeah, somebody is hostile to those who keep the commandments of God.

Matthew 24.....Jesus sees the Sabbath at the end of time.....and a people being persecuted...it’s best to study the Bible:

Quote:

The Great Tribulation
15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the [c]elect’s sake those days will be shortened.

So you invoked Luther, and then Spurgeon and now Wesley, yet since none of these kept the 7th day Sabbath versus the First, all you can say is that they recognized the 4th commandment as being part of immutable moral law, while observing the First.

Dr. Stephen Flick has written an article containing quotes from those writers, called Sunday Worship or the Lord’s Day in the Early Christianity, proving that "the Lord's Day" was always synonymous with the first day of the week.

As I mentioned in my previous article, Famous Christian Sabbath Observers, John Wesley was a famous preacher who kept the Christian Sabbath. I read a comment made by a reader of one of his sermons posted online about the Sabbath, in which the reader wondered why the Methodists worship on Sunday, since their founder Wesley was a Sabbath keeper. The reason is that he believed Sunday was the Sabbath day of the New Covenant, and it is clearly evident throughout his journals that he kept the Lord's Day holy. This can easily be proven by doing a search on the word "Sunday" in his journals posted online. - https://workinggodsway.blogspot.com/2017/03/wesleys-sunday-sabbath-keeping.html

The Journal of John Wesley by John Wesley

I began to learn German in order to converse with the Germans, six-and-twenty of whom we had on board. On Sunday, the weather being fair and calm, we had the morning service on quarterdeck. I now first preached extempore and then administered the Lord’s Supper to six or seven communicants.

Sunday, March 7.—I entered upon my ministry at Savannah, by preaching on the epistle for the day, being the thirteenth of First Corinthians.

Sunday, August 7.—I repelled Mrs. Williamson from the holy communion. and Monday, [July] 8, Mr. Recorder, of Savannah, issued out the warrant following: “Georgia. Savannah ss. “To all Constables, Tithingmen, and others, whom these may concern: “You, and each of you, are hereby required to take the body of John Wesley, Clerk

“If you offer yourself at the Lord’s table on Sunday, I will advertise you (as I have done more than once) wherein you have done wrong.

1738. Sunday, January 1.--All in the ship, except the captain and steersman, were present both at the morning and evening service and appeared as deeply attentive

Sunday, 12.—I preached at St. Andrew’s, Holborn on “Though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” [I Cor. 13:3]. Oh, hard sayings!

Sunday, 26.—I preached at six, at St. Lawrence’s; at ten, in St. Catherine Cree’s Church; and in the afternoon, at St. John’s, Wapping.

Sunday, April 2.—Being Easter day, I preached in our college chapel on “The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God: and they that hear shall live

Sunday, 7.—I preached at St. Lawrence’s in the morning, and afterward at St. Katherine Cree’s Church.

Sunday, 14.—I preached in the morning at St. Ann’s, Aldersgate; and in the afternoon at the Savoy Chapel, free salvation by faith in the blood of Christ.

Saturday, 18.—We went to Stanton Harcourt. The next day I preached once more at the castle in Oxford, to a numerous and serious congregation

I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday

I only went thru about a third of the Journal regarding Sunday, but this suffices to show clear testimony to the practice of Wesley observing the 1st day as the day of worship. As occasion arose, sometimes he preached on Saturday, yet it was also a day of travel, etc, and not as if that was the Lord's day. And from Mrs. Wesley:

knowing our religion requires a strict observation of the Lord’s day, and not thinking that we fully answered the end of the institution by going to church unless we filled up the intermediate spaces of time by other acts of piety and devotion

“I cannot conceive, why any should reflect upon you because your wife endeavors to draw people to church and to restrain them from profaning the Lord’s day by reading to them

“There were several by-laws observed among us...That no sinful action, as lying, pilfering, playing at church, or on the Lord’s day, disobedience, quarreling, and so forth, should ever pass unpunished.

- https://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Wesley_Journal.pdf

The mark of the beast is religious intolerance. To persecute and hate those who disagree with you.

Which (if not "hate") befits SDA compulsive cultists hijacking FR as well as men as Luther, and then Spurgeon (Moody next?) and now Wesley to support of your cult with her prophetess, and despite a minuscule fan base.

I’ll let you figure out who that will be and how it will be done in the end. Including laws mandating a universal day of worship.

Which is absurd as regards a certain day being the issue. It is the idolatrous object that is the abomination, not sincere worship of the God of the Bible, as Luther, and Spurgeon promoted.

And your goddess did not deny what Eld. Wellcome stated in her contention with him, who stated that,

"All Christians kept the first day of the week during that three hundred years before there was any beast to ordain it, or any mark for them to receive."

Which she can only say that this

"was not based upon did not profess to keep that day on any Scripture authority," "or as the Sabbath, or as a substitute for the observance of the seventh day."

Be back much later... Which by itself means that Christians who kept the first day of the week during that first three hundred years can not be condemned, and the apostles are to be blamed as not correcting this!

Thus her case can only be against those who do so out of allegiance to Rome, as she states

that That the Sunday-sabbath is a creature of the Papal power, and offered by it as a sign of its power; And that it is a counterfeit of God’s sign, and is the mark or sign of the beast referred to in the Third Angels Message.

- https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1495.7#59

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