Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Think About It.....

"God’s highest creation was Lucifer
, now called
Satan
He was the captain of the angelic host, but he was dissatisfied with his position and coveted God’s position. 
He sought to take the prerogatives that belong only to God, his Creator. 

Isaiah gives us some more details of Lucifer’s thoughts, choices, and actions: 
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most-High” (Isaiah 14:12–14). 

The prophet Ezekiel records Lucifer’s heavenly power and position: Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Ezekiel 28:14–15).

John reports: 
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him (Revelation 12:7–10). 


In that cosmic conflict
the most powerful of God’s created beings lost his position but none of his power. 

The rebellion continues today on planet Earth, in the hearts of men and women. 
Beginning with our first parents, the battle for our choices, and ultimately our worship, has never ceased. Every human being that was ever born has to contend with Satan’s opposition to Jehovah.

God created His Sabbath and has bestowed it to all of humanity as an emblem and reminder of His creative and redemptive power. 
He has embedded it in His holy Ten Commandments as a reminder to all humanity. Our Creator bids us
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8–11). 

Nowhere in sacred writ has it been stated, alluded to, or implied that the God of Creation has changed His holy Sabbath day from the seventh day of the week to the first. 
---But the Roman church claims: “Perhaps the most revolutionary change the church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. ‘The day of the Lord’ (Dies Dominica) was chosen, not from any directions noted in the Scriptures, but from the church’s sense of its own power … people who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority should logically become 7th Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy” 
(Saint Catherine Catholic Sentinel, May 21, 1995).

At the center of the conflict is the matter of worship. 
The apostle Paul declares: 
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey
his servants ye are to whom ye obey 
whether of sin unto death, 
or of obedience unto righteousness” 
(Romans 6:16)." 
AndyDuncan/AdventMessenger