I have just been meditating on a text in Numbers Chapter 23. In that passage the prophet Balaam makes a statement that is profound in its implications. The king of Moab had pleaded with Balaam to curse Israel so that he could defeat them in battle. Balaam realizes that Israel has been blessed by God and is, therefore, not subject to such a curse. He then says to the king of Moab, “Behold, I have received commandment to bless, and He (God) hath blessed (blessed Israel), AND I CANNOT REVERSE IT.” (verse 20). Now look at Genesis 2, verses 1 thru 3, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. AND GOD BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY, AND SANCTIFIED IT, because that He had rested from all His work, which God created and made.”
Now, consider Balaam’s statement to the king of Moab: “He hath blessed, AND I CANNOT REVERSE IT!” No one has or ever will have the authority or power to interfere with or change, or alter, God’s pronounced blessing on the seventh day. The seventh day is His sabbath. It was blessed at the time of creation of mankind. None can reverse it. NO ONE! Nowhere in all the Bible do you find that God blessed Sunday, making it a day of rest and worship. NOWHERE! Nowhere in all the Bible do you find that God desanctified His sacred sabbath, removing His blessing from it. NOWHERE! Sunday worship is an invention of men regardless of how many professing “Christians” honor it and spurn God’s sabbath. If a million popes place their blessing on it, it doesn’t change a thing. If every professing Christian in the world begins honoring Sunday as the Lord’s Day, it will not change a thing!
Jesus Christ was crucified in a warm weather month. It was imperative that they anoint the body as quickly as possible with the funerary ointments as corruption would be setting in quickly, yet since an annual sabbath was fast approaching and would begin within an hour or so, “the women which came with Him from Galilee, followed after (Joseph of Arimathea, the man who was given Christ’s body by Pilate), and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid (unanointed), and they returned (to their homes), and prepared spices and ointments, AND RESTED THE SABBATH DAY ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT” (See Luke 23:50-56). Note well, these followers of the Lord RESTED ON THE SABBATH DAY ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT even though it was imperative that the body of Jesus be anointed as quickly as possible. Nothing Jesus had said during His three year ministry gave them any indication that God’s holy sabbath was to be desanctified, made a common day, a day to be replaced by the pagan “day of the sun,” a day held sacred to the sun god for centuries, the day we moderns call Sunday! They wouldn’t violate God’s sabbath day for ANY reason, not even to anoint the crucified body of their Lord! Think about that for a moment. We had better stop listening to men and let the Word of God speak to us and order our conduct. “All these people can’t be wrong” is a phoney argument. Can all these Roman Catholics be wrong? Can all these Mormons be wrong? Can all these Muslims be wrong? “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” (See Romans 3:4).
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley