“And they (the Jewish leaders) watched Him (Jesus), whether He would heal him (the man with the withered hand) on the sabbath day, THAT THEY MIGHT ACCUSE HIM” (Mark 3:2).
To slam the Jewish mind shut instantaneously, one only had to appear to dishonor the sacredness of the Sabbath day!
And what did these Jews do immediately after observing Jesus Christ healing this man on the Sabbath? “And the Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians (those with political power) against Him, how they might destroy Him (crucifying Him)” (Mark 3:6).
Few seem to realize that it was the Lord’s supposed Sabbath violation that got Him arrested and killed! When we read in the opening chapters of the book of Acts that “a great company of the priests believed,” becoming Christians, you can well believe the apostles and their followers were still observing the Sabbath. Had they forsaken the Sabbath for Sunday observance, honoring the day of the sun god, the day venerated throughout the Roman Empire as a sacred day, they, like Jesus, would have been killed!
I cannot find a sufficient number of adjectives to describe Satan’s ability to deceive. It is staggering, fantastic, stupendous, mind-boggling…..To think that Sunday observance replaced Sabbath observance starting in Jerusalem and with the apostles and temple priests is about the most ludicrous thought that Satan could inject into the human mind. And yet Satan’s deceptive powers are so formidable that he has led multiplied millions of Christians and their leaders to believe that this is exactly what happened!
No wonder scripture warns us against comparing ourselves with one another, using another’s beliefs to gauge whether we have and know and practice the truth ourselves. Satan’s deceptive powers are so great that the other guy, regardless of who he may be, may be utterly deceived and wrong in some, if not much, of what he believes.
Yes, I am going to live a while longer, for the Lord has found one more servant who will come against Satan’s lies with a formidable amount of scripture, who will not cave in to peer pressure, and who will now and always “tell it like it is.”
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley