Does God consider one day of the week more special than the others? How are we to keep the Lord's Day?
This 5-part video documentary answers these questions and much more—and it may now be watched online,
using the links below. Click the "More info..." links for more detailed descriptions of each part.
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Part 1. Our Origins and the 7-day Weekly Cycle |
52 minutes |
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Part 2. Saturday-Sunday Tension in the Early Church |
47 minutes |
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Part 3. Medieval Fakes, Forgeries, and Propaganda |
48 minutes |
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Part 4. Seventh-day Observance During the Renaissance |
60 minutes |
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Part 5. Current Issues Related to the Seventh Day |
84 minutes |
The Seventh Day
Revelations From the Lost Pages of History
Part 1: Our Origins and the 7-Day Weekly Cycle
Did you ever wonder . . .
- If life on earth really began by accident?
- Why the week has seven days?
- 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.
Part 3: Medieval Fakes, Forgeries, and Propaganda
Did you know that . . .
- 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.
Part 5: Current Issues Related to the Seventh Day
Did you know that . . .
- 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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