Sometimes I wonder if God the Father, looking down on this earth and seeing me, might not have said to His Son, let’s see what we can do with that one. I was a prime candidate for grace. I had embraced so much sin for so long that I had to be a test for God’s ability as a Potter – One who could take my marred clay form and reform and refashion it into something worthy of saving and keeping. But I guess we are all marred vessels, aren’t we? But the question is – are we going to permit the Potter to work, to remold and refashion us into what we might have been had father Adam never sinned? That’s what He is doing with believers, you know. He is blotting out all our past offenses and leading us into the path of righteousness and purity of life.
“And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that says, ‘I know Him,’ and keeps not His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (I John 2:3-4). The only validation of salvation is a life of obedience. It is the only possible proof that a person really knows Jesus Christ. The test of true, living, God-given faith is whether it produces continuous obedience and does such faith result in answered prayer. It amazes me when I encounter believers who find this scripture in I John 2 threatening.
John knew that Jesus Christ had said, “If you will enter into life (eternal), keep the commandments!” (See Matthew 19:17). When asked which commandments Jesus began reciting the Ten Commandments. And of these commandments Jesus had stated quite clearly at the outset of His public ministry that not one iota, not one jot or tittle of those commandments would be changed or abolished. They were eternal, sacrosanct, originally written in stone by the very finger of God! And there were ten – not nine. (See Matthew 5:17-28 and Exodus 20).
I warn you again: Satan is very good at what he does, folks. Common sense declares there must be an active, ongoing spirit being like Satan operating generation after generation on this earth. How else does one explain the changing of one of God’s commandments by believers when scripture after scripture declares this cannot be done?!!! How could decent folk, Bible “scholars” be duped into abandoning God’s eternal Sabbath for the day long honored by sun worshipers? Jesus plainly said until heaven and earth passed away this could not be done! Yet the overwhelming majority of professing Christians now scorn Sabbath observance and honor the day of the sun. From Roman Catholics to Mormons, from Amish to Baptists they, one and all, believe wholeheartedly the scriptures show God’s Sabbath was abolished and replaced by Sunday! (And, of course, they do have a very few scripture texts that they think supports them in their forsaking the Sabbath – texts they obviously do not understand at all).
God calls the Sabbath “a delight” and commands that we do the same. (See Isaiah 58:13). So men call it a burden and a yoke of bondage! Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man. (See Mark 2:27). So men say it was made for the Jew alone! And you doubt Satan’s existence? There is no other explanation for a religious person’s failure to see what God’s Word so clearly proclaims! There has to be a blinding POWER at work that prevents most believers from seeing the plain truth of God’s Word. They just do not have the ability to put it all together. They can only see those scriptures that SEEMINGLY teach that Sunday is a holy day, calling it the Christian Sabbath! If I had no other reason to believe Satan exists this phenomenon would be sufficient to convince me Satan is real and presently at work on planet earth in the year 2021.
Christ’s Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley