Should christians play "poker" or "cards"

Playing cards has become a joker or just a game. It has been said that nicknames for a deck of cards is "the devil's bible" and "devils picture book". At one time chuch took a strong stand against the card game, until recently preachers and churches warned about the danger of cards. The first deck cards was made in 1392 for the insane French King Charlce.
Some of the most common places you will find a deck of cards (beside our homes) will be prostitutes, gamblers,thieves, murderers and in tarvens,but never in a church.
All of the other cards have hidden obscene and blasphemous meanings. Nine tenth of all gambling today is done with these cards. Witches, psychics, and satan worshippers use playing cards for divination and to cast spells and curses.
The meaning of poker or cards, they are called devil's bible
1 Tim 6:12, Deut 7:26, 1 John 2:15-17, Rom 12:12, 2 Cor 6:17-18, Isaiah 52:11, Isaiah 43:6.

* The king- represents satan prince of darkness
* The ten card is for the spirit of lawlessness in opposition to the moral law in the word of God.
* The Jack- represents the lastful libernite, from pimp to adulterer and whoremonger, a moral leper, whose chief mission is to gratify sensual fleshly lusts
* The queen- represents Mary, mother of Jesus, but in cards she is called mother of harlots
* The Joker- represents Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Joker means a fool and therefore Jesus is held up to reducile.

Playing of cards simply glorifies the kingdom of darkness and insults the kingdom of the Living GOd and HIs only begotten Son, who died for us and shared His blood for our reedemption.
I have made up my mind that everything that doesn't glorify God, i will not be the part of it.

Which side you gonna be? The side that that sees Jesus as a joker or a side that sees the devil as as the father or lies and the accuser of our brethrens.

May the Lord who is rich in mercy, bless you, amen.
Evangelist THemba D. Mathibela

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Comment by Anna on June 29, 2009 at 8:34am
When you answer, tell me how you interpret the phrase "no longer under the law"?
1) According to the scriptures, what law is this phrase referring to. Please list them.

2) Does that to you mean you do not have to obey these laws that you are no longer under?

3) Since you agree that the laws written in your heart should be obeyed, what laws are these?
Remember this phrase about the New Covenant, quoted in Hebrews 8 was quoted from Jeremiah 31:33, and if you are familiar with the Hebrew the term for law, which is written in your heart is TORAH, # H8451.

Therefore I submit to you, with the Torah written in your heart, YHWH also endeavors to write the 10 commandments on the tables of YOUR HEART, and no longer on the tables of stone.
Do you agree, disagree?

Remember you cannot arbitrarily cherry-pick the commandments from the bible that you don't like and ascribe that to God or the Holy Spirit.

Please also tell me which are the "commandments of God" (along with the faith of Jesus) that the text in Revelation refers to.

I cannot believe that you are trying to alledge that playing cards is worse than Breaking the Holy Sabbath day. You did not get that teaching from the Holy Spirit.

Jesus kept the Sabbath, shouldn't He be your example?
Also show us which of the disciples ever broke the Sabbath as you do and teach your followers to do.
Comment by Anna on June 28, 2009 at 1:38pm
The Holy Spirit would not teach you that you did not need to keep the 7th Day Sabbath Holy.
As I previously asked, show me the scriptures that support that you do not need to keep the Sabbath, and that every day is the Sabbath as you alledge.

Did Jesus teach this to His disciples or did they rest, go to a Holy convocation, and do good works as Jesus did?

If keeping the Sabbath brings one under the law, based on what law do you forbid the playing with a deck of cards? Most of your quotes came from the same "law" in the Old Testament.

Jesus came to give us an example of how to live, rather than how not to live.
If you lived as He did you would teach as He taught and walk in obedience to the commandments of God as He did.

Have you not read from the book of Revelation, the saints KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD.
Isn't the Sabbath a commandment/one of the laws of God?

Rev. 14:12 -
ing James Bible
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Rev. 22:14:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Comment by Themba D Mathibela on June 28, 2009 at 1:20pm
Point of correction: i have never disagreed that His laws are written in our hearts, and yes i said we are no longer under the law, but grace, for by grace we are saved. I don't understand if you say i have been taught wrong what you mean, because the Holy Spirit is our teacher and the Holy Spirit was never and He cannot be wrong. People can be wrong but God can't be wrong.
Comment by Anna on June 28, 2009 at 1:00pm
My brother you have been taught wrong about YHWH's law, HE said in the New Covenant His LAW /TORAH is to be written on YOUR mind and heart:

King James Bible
Heb. 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
~~~~~~~~
We are therefore not under the "penalty of the law" we are under grace.
We are not under the law of sin and death, we are under grace.

To teach or believe otherwise you are alledging that the Bible contradicts itself.
Comment by Anna on June 28, 2009 at 12:57pm
I have done a search and study on the subject of "playing cards".

They did not originate in Europe, but were first brought there by the Moors. They did not originally have the connotation that the Europeans ascribed to them.

Here is a link where you can do a more historic study.

Where did Playing Cards come from?
A cluster of early literary references refer to the game being introduced by 'a Saracen', 'the Moorish Game' etc. Etymological evidence also suggests that the Arabs introduced playing cards into Europe in the second half of the fourteenth century and that European cards evolved from the suit system and composition of these cards.

Left: Mamluk playing card, c.1520. [Istanbul, Topkapi Seray Museum].

How were they introduced?

Scenario 1: playing cards might have been introduced into Europe by a fourteenth century traveller returning from afar, who said 'Hey chaps, guess what I saw in ....' and then proceed to manufacture a set of cards out of scraps of cardboard according to his recollections of seeing a similar game being played elsewhere. The symbols and courts might have been what he thought that he had seen, and also the game played with them [Diane O'Donovan].

Scenario 2: a number of travellers to Asia or Africa learned some card game, individually or as a group, and having played it with local inhabitants and perhaps each other during their travels, they decided to bring a pack or a few packs back with them, so that they could continue playing at home in Europe. When the original cards wore out they had copies made locally in Europe [John McLeod].

Objection: The early reference says 'introduced by a Saracen' so it seems that it was more a case of an Arabic game being introduced by a Saracen rather than some Europeans discovering it on their travels.
http://www.wopc.co.uk/history/page_1.html

Regarding the Sabbath, I suggest you allow the Bible to give you the definition for the Sabbath as the one you have given is not correct.

The Bible never states that "every day is holy and set apart by the Lord.
The Bible never states that "every day should be a Sabbath.
You are simply using man made philosophy, commandments and doctrines of men, and not the scriptues that the Bereans or Paul would have used when he admonished us to "prove all things, hold fast to that which is good".

Please provide for me the scriptures which you believe allow you to break the Sabbath yet you quote other verses from this same "law of Moses" from the Old Testament that you claim Christians must obey. You are not consistant in your theology.

The Sabbath preceeded sin, it is the first entity to be called HOLY.

See how the Prophet Isaiah speaks reverently of the Sabbath quoting YHWH Himself.

Is. 56:
Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.

3 Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree.

4 For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;

5 Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.

6 Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;

Is. 58:13-
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word,
14 Then you will take delight in the LORD,
And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Did not our Savior say that man should live by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God?

The Sabbath will be kept in the new earth, not SUNDAY, see
Is. 66:
22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth
Which I make will endure before Me,” declares the LORD,
“So your offspring and your name will endure.
23 “And it shall be from new moon to new moon
And from sabbath to sabbath,
All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the LORD


If you want to teach the whole council of God, teach it 100% from the WORD, do not mix it with the commandments and doctrines of men.

Here are what all the denominations say about the Sabbath:
Remember Jesus said "If you love me, keep my commandments"



Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions about Sunday



The vast majority of Christian churches today teach the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, as a time for rest and worship. Yet it is generally known and freely admitted that the early Christians observed the seventh day as the Sabbath. How did this change come about?

History reveals that it was decades after the death of the apostles that a politico-religious system repudiated the Sabbath of Scripture and substituted the observance of the first day of the week. The following quotations, all from Roman Catholic sources, freely acknowledge that there is no Biblical authority for the observance of Sunday, that it was the Roman Church that changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week.

In the second portion of this booklet are quotations from Protestants. Undoubtedly all of these noted clergymen, scholars, and writers kept Sunday, but they all frankly admit that there is no Biblical authority for a first-day sabbath.




Roman Catholic Confessions



James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.

"But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."

Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.

"Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?

"Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."

John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies (1 936), vol. 1, P. 51.

"Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days."

Daniel Ferres, ed., Manual of Christian Doctrine (1916), p.67.

"Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?

"Answer. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of, and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.'

James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore (1877-1921), in a signed letter.

"Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the seventh day -Saturday - for Sunday, the first day? I answer yes . Did Christ change the day'? I answer no!

"Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons"

The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893.

"The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."

Catholic Virginian Oct. 3, 1947, p. 9, art. "To Tell You the Truth."

"For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the[Roman Catholic] church outside the Bible."

Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Converts Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957), p. 50.

"Question: Which is the Sabbath day?

"Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.

"Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

"Answer. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."

Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About (1927),p. 136.

"Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday .... Now the Church ... instituted, by God's authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday."

Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic Church Extension Society (1975),Chicago, Illinois.

"Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts:

"1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.

"2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws.

"It is always somewhat laughable, to see the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of Sunday, of which there is nothing in their Bible."

T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18,1884.

"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic Church says: 'No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.' And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church."

Protestant Confessions
Protestant theologians and preachers from a wide spectrum of denominations have been quite candid in admitting that there is no Biblical authority for observing Sunday as a sabbath.

Anglican/Episcopal
Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism , vol. 1, pp.334, 336.

"And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day .... The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it."

Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments , pp. 52, 63, 65.

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday .... into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters.... The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday."

Bishop Seymour, Why We Keep Sunday .

We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy Catholic Church."

Baptist
Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a paper read before a New York ministers' conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner , Nov.16, 1893.

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week .... Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament absolutely not.

"To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question . . . never alluded to any transference of the day; also, that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated.

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history . . . . But what a pity it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!"

William Owen Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day , p. 49.

"There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance."

Congregationalist
Dr. R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments (New York: Eaton &Mains), p. 127-129.

" . . . it is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath - . . 'Me Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday .... There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday."

Timothy Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Ser. 107, vol. 3, p. 258.

" . . . the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath."

Disciples of Christ
Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist, Feb. 2, 1824,vol. 1. no. 7, p. 164.

"'But,' say some, 'it was changed from the seventh to the first day.' Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed! It is all old wives' fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.'

First Day Observance , pp. 17, 19.

"The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change."

Lutheran
The Sunday Problem , a study book of the United Lutheran Church (1923), p. 36.

"We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen that the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one with the other, but for a time celebrated both."

Augsburg Confession of Faith art. 28; written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther, 1530; as published in The Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Henry Jacobs, ed. (1 91 1), p. 63.

"They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, a shaving been changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!"

Dr. Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church Henry John Rose, tr. (1843), p. 186.

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday."

John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday , pp. 15, 16.

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel .... These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect."

Methodist
Harris Franklin Rall, Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p.26.

"Take the matter of Sunday. There are indications in the New Testament as to how the church came to keep the first day of the week as its day of worship, but there is no passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day."

John Wesley, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., John Emory, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25,vol. 1, p. 221.

"But, the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, he [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken .... 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."

Dwight L. Moody
D. L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting (Fleming H. Revell Co.: New York), pp. 47, 48.

The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God Wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?"

Presbyterian
T. C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, pp.474, 475.

"The Sabbath is a part of the decalogue - the Ten Commandments. This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution . . . . Until, therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand . . . . The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath."
Comment by Themba D Mathibela on June 28, 2009 at 11:34am
Grace unto you my dear sister, first thing about the subject that you are still going to investigate please do the bible says study to show yourself approved. You cant lead if you cant read.
About the ten commandments, i believe that in the flesh we are weak, but in spirit we are mighty and strong there's no enough mental strength nor enough physical strength to live for GOd. That is why we need to come to the fountain that filled with blood, and all our sins can be forgiven. And now by the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit and the the grace of God we can please God in our behaviour and conduct.
We cannot fulfil the lust of flesh only when the Holy Spirit take more of us and gives us more of Him. Without Him we will fail, without Him we will fall, but through Him is possible to live a holy life.

Now about the sabath i don't know if you are talking about a specified day or what. Because every day ought to be a sabath. Because sabath is a day set apart by the Lord is a holy and sanctified day reserved for the service of the Lord. I believe that each and every day should be a sabath, what is the use to live like the devil the whole week and be an angel only on a certain day because you respect your law. We are no longer under law but grace.

Remain blessed
Evang. T. D Mathibela
Comment by Anna on June 28, 2009 at 8:55am
Brother I must admit that you have brought something to my attention that I had never studied before, which I will continue to investigate.

We can often major in minors and minor in majors the Bible does not specifically address playing cards, or anything similar to it.

However, my question to you is, you mention "lawlessness" and the "moral law of God" do you keep each of the 10 commandments, specifically the 7th Day Sabbath? What good is it if you don't play cards, yet you profane the Holy Sabbath of the Bible every week of your life? We DO have an example of our Messiah and His apostles keeping the 7th day Sabbath, and we know in the future it will be kept based upon Is. 66:23/23.

We also are told "learn not the way of the heathen" in Jeremiah 10:1 - 10. The whole system of Holidays in the Christian church stem from Paganism, Christmas, New Years Day, St. Valentine's day, Easter. If you celebrate these Christian holidays, you are in direct violation of many other commandments of YHWH, although you might not play cards.

Have you ever studied these things of which I speak?
Comment by Themba D Mathibela on June 27, 2009 at 10:42am
I need to hear your views and what do you know about cards.

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