July 18: Resurrection Power
So He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house . . . and they were worshiping the sun towards the east. And He said to me, “Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here?” Ezekiel 8:16,17
Our enemy has had enormous success in diverting the attention of people away from the Creator to created things. John the Revelator relayed to us from Jesus that this enemy is Satan, who deceives the whole world (Revelation 12:9). Ancient pagan religions have Babylonian roots and revolve around sun worship. The heavenly bodies are beautiful and have a purpose (Genesis 1:14), but none are to be worshiped. The Scriptures frequently warn against this practice. In our opening passage, the word abominations is plural, because sun worship is invariably intertwined with a disturbing list of perverted, satanic rituals. Make no mistake, Satan wants to be in the center of worship.
Billions of Christians have been taught in recent centuries to honor Sunday as “the Lord’s Day”. This practice gained impetus through Roman politics in the third century in a failed attempt to unite the crumbling empire and bring about peace. While secular history books hail this as a brilliant political maneuver, it was in fact an exploitation of different groups, both religious and secular, to induce favor with the government. Rome fell in AD476, having been carved up by warring barbarian tribes.
Nowhere in all of the Bible is there any change of the Sabbath day. But God, who sees the future, knew that it would be attempted (Daniel 7:25). Sunday-keeping is a tradition of uninspired men and it breaks God’s fourth commandment. God blessed the Sabbath and made it holy. Only He can do that. When God blesses, no man can “reverse” it (see Numbers 23:20).
We are given baptism to celebrate His resurrection and its ongoing power to raise us up every day from the old life of sin and death. In fact, it is the “resurrection power” of His Holy Spirit that saves us from the old life of sin. Satan does not want this to happen in the life of an individual, so he has distorted the method and meaning of baptism (Acts 8:37), but especially the awesome, freeing power from sin’s grip that it represents. Jesus exercised faithfulness to the Commandments (John 15:10). Even in His death He kept the Sabbath. If we have exercised faith to truly rest with the Lord on the Sabbath, in honor of His chosen day of rest, we are refreshed and ready to return to our work on the first day of the week!
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection…Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:4,5,11
Beware, lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of this world, and not according to Christ…you were buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. Colossians 2:8,12