Basic Doctrine: Sabbath

The sermon and the Bible study are going to be on the same subject today. I had mentioned that just from requests I'd received from a number of people, here and even conversations I had with people up in Nashville, there was an interest in going back through some very basic doctrines. I know when I first came here, man it's been six years ago. It's unbelievable. I went through a whole series a whole year where every third sermon and every Bible study was one of the basic doctrines. So we're still going to go through 1 Corinthians 13, but I do want to take time also to go through some basic doctrines. I started asking people which ones do you think would be a nice place to start. Almost everybody said the Sabbath. The reason why is that there's just questions, especially from people who grew up in the church, younger people, about the Sabbath. Why do we make such a major issue? Usually the question comes down to, I believe we should keep the Sabbath, but I have lots of friends who are Christians who keep Sunday and they think it's unimportant. So why do we think it's that important? Why would we think it's that important? So I thought, you know, we're going to start with the Sabbath. We're going to talk about it in the sermon and hopefully have a little interaction in the Bible study. As we're going to go through the Bible study, what are some of the passages in the Old Testament that people use to say you don't have to keep the Sabbath? And find out what things that people brought to you and said, okay, this is the reason why you shouldn't keep the Sabbath. And it was interesting, I did this in Nashville, and I was surprised how many people that somebody at work has come up and said, you know, I know you're a Sabbath keeper, but here's what the Bible says. And actually confronts them with it. I thought those days were long gone. You know, most people don't care anymore, but there's still people who do. So we start with the fact that it is one of the Ten Commandments. It is interesting, we're doing a Beyond Today program yesterday. No, what was it? Thirsty. We had a meeting where we had to discuss the Beyond Today programs that we're going to do and produce next month. And the idea I had was I want to go through, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talks about two of the Ten Commandments. Adultery and murder. And he explains adultery and murder. You've heard it read that it says this, but I'm saying it even goes beyond that. And he explains how it goes beyond that. And then if you take other teachings of Jesus, it even goes beyond that. Eventually he says it's not just wrong with murder, it's wrong to hate, and then you must love even your enemies. So all these are expanded out. And I'm going to cover that as the first part of the telecast. And then I'm going to say most Christians applied that to all the Ten Commandments, except one. Because there's no way you can take Jesus' teaching and say, okay, it's okay to commit adultery as long as you love your wife. You can't say the spirit of the law destroys the letter of the law. You can't say that, but they do it with one. Well, we don't keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is in our heart every day. I'd be like saying, I can commit adultery as long as I love my wife. It breaks down. And every other commandment you can draw this out, and they literally, if that one, break their own logic. So we're actually going to do a program on this. Remember the Sabbath day. That's what it says in Exodus. But we know that the Sabbath existed before then, and this is very important in our understanding of the Sabbath. It existed before then. Let's go to Genesis. This is very basic material, but let's go through it.

Genesis chapter 3, or chapter 2, I'm sorry, and verse 1.

There's a time to go back and rehearse basics. If we will give up the Sabbath, you'll start giving up all kinds of things. If you don't keep the Sabbath, why keep the Holy Days? You don't keep the Holy Days, why keep the Passover? You don't keep the Passover. You see, it just goes on and on and on. Verse 1, So we have it from the very beginning. God created this day holy. Now, He created all the days, and we're supposed to be holy every day, but this day was special. One of the arguments you'll hear sometimes is, yeah, notice evening the morning was all the other days. Started at night and ended at the end of the day. So all the other days were 24-hour days, evening to morning. But this one doesn't say evening to morning, so this one never ended. We're all in Sabbath rest with God every day. That is the most bizarre viewpoint of Scripture you can imagine. And yet I've seen people say that. They say, show that to me. Show it to me. No, no, that's what... No, show it to me. Where it says it never ended. That it's not a literal day. Well, I can show you that it is. Let's go to Exodus 20.

You see, no one argues that the seventh day is the Sabbath. I have never seen a Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox or Muslim. They all agree the seventh day is the biblical Sabbath. They all agree. The Muslims just believe that Muslims were given Friday as their holy day. Christians, for a number of reasons, believe Sunday is the holy day. And that's not even holy anymore. Very few people keep Sunday as a holy day. It's just a day that you might go to church depending on when the football game starts.

So verse 8 says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, do all your work. The seventh day is the day of the Lord your God. Now, it's a day. Six days you do your work, but every day is the day you don't do your work. It's a day. There's no other way you can understand this. And throughout history, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all agreed the seventh day is the Sabbath day. It's not an argument. The question is, who has to keep it? In it you should do no work. Know your son, know your daughter, know your male servant, know your female servant, know your cattle, know your strangers within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that's in them and He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. There's no way that's talking about some allegorical eternity. It's a day. And on that day, the command is, don't do your normal work. And make sure it's very interesting. It's a day of liberation. Your children, your servants, you can't, you're not even supposed to go, you know, get your horse to go plow the field. Everybody is supposed to stop because it's a holy day made by God to come into relationship with Him. He made it that way. Human beings don't have the right to make something holy. Only God can make something holy. So God made this day. He made it before He gave the Ten Commandments. He made it before the New Testament Church. He made it at the very beginning. And that's remember because that's the day I made holy. That's the commandment.

And so we have the idea that God rested that this is a time for relationship with Him. You know, the Ten Commandments were given twice. And what's interesting, there's something a little different said in the Second Giving of the Ten Commandments about the Sabbath. Now, the Second Giving of the Ten Commandments, this was when they first came out of Egypt. The Second Giving was later. And there's something very important in it that has to do with the New Testament observance of the Seventh Day Sabbath. Let's go to Deuteronomy 5.

Deuteronomy chapter 5.

And verse 15.

And verse 16. But I talked to the, I might have mentioned this, to the, I tell you, when I was talking to the new hall we're looking at, and I said, now we do have some different beliefs. I mean, obviously we're Sabbath keepers. I said, do you or your congregation have a trouble with that? He said, well, you believe in the Almighty God and His eternal Son, Jesus Christ, and salvation comes through Jesus Christ? I said, yes. He says, you don't think your salvation comes through your Sabbath keeping? I said, no more than you think it comes through your Sunday keeping? And he just started to laugh and he said, okay. How are you saved through Sabbath keeping? The question is, is what God wants you to do? I said, we keep it because it's part of the Ten Commandments because Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He said, well, I can't argue with you. That's okay. He didn't see that as some kind of wrong. He didn't ask me about His Sunday keeping, so I didn't say anything. It's just that He can't earn salvation through it either. So there's something very interesting here in verse 15 of chapter 5. It starts with observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He doesn't say remember, he just says observe it. And then we go down to verse 15. Now remember, this is part of the Sabbath command. This is what ancient Israel was told. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath holy. Now, it was created beforehand. They knew about it before the Ten Commandments were given. Just look at Exodus 16. God was upset with them because they didn't keep the Sabbath. They were supposed to. So they knew about it before the Ten Commandments. And here He says, you keep the Sabbath in Exodus, it's because you're looking at God as Creator, right? God created this day. God is Creator. He says here, you keep it because you remember God brought you out of slavery. God is your Redeemer. The concept of God as Redeemer is all through the Old Testament. That He must buy you back from where you are. Now, we understand that's through Jesus Christ. That's why that concept of the Sabbath representing God as Redeemer is very important for us. Very important. This isn't just a nice day, another day, of sort of we do this because, well, it's a custom. We do this because it's commanded and it's actually expected. I'm not saying I'm not condemning everybody else. I'm just saying this is why we do it. This is why we do this. Now, let's look at a few places where Jesus talks about the Sabbath. Obviously, there's lots of places we can look at, lots of scriptures, but I'm just picking a few.

Jesus launched His ministry on the Sabbath day. And I want you to notice what He read. Luke 4. Because in doing this, He ties in the Sabbath with the Messiah, which is what? Our Redeemer, right? The Christ. The Christ is our Redeemer. Luke 4 and verse 16.

There's a depth to the Sabbath day that sometimes we don't, I think, have stressed enough. I'm going to mention one issue here in a little bit. I think we have never stressed enough.

I might even, maybe the next Bible study, we'll cover it. We'll see. Luke 4. 16.

So He, Jesus came to Nazareth, which He had been brought up. As His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. When He opened the book, He found the place where it was written. So they give Him the scroll. This wasn't unusual for different members of the synagogue. Men, the women didn't, as the custom was. They would open the scroll and they would read something out of it. And there were rabbis who would expound it. They were just part of their service. And here's what He read. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the recovery of sight to the blind, and said at liberty those who were oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And all the eyes of all who were there in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He said, today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And of course they said, wait a minute, this is Joseph's son. He just said He's the anointed one. That He's come to liberate. He's come to redeem. Wait a minute, how can this be Him? They knew exactly what He was saying. And so He explains then, basically that's who He is. And you know what happens? Always friends and neighbors tried to kill Him. That's how He started His ministry. With always friends and neighbors trying to kill Him. Because He had come, here He is on the Sabbath day saying, I am here as the anointed one to do these things.

The Sabbath teaches us the redemption of God. It is so central to it that we've missed it. I think at times we have. We've missed this point of Jesus Christ's redemption tied into the Sabbath day. Let's look at another place. Well, there's some questions you can ask yourself about Sabbath keeping. Do I understand the biblical concept of redemption? And without it, you know, life doesn't have any meaning without it. Or even the Gospel. You know, I mean, if we truly understand the Gospel, you can't keep your mouth shut about it. You will share it. You'll find ways to share it. Some ways. Personally, helping others do it. If you understand it, you can't not share it. It's not possible. I don't know how I could. I could not share it. I mean, I don't go around dumping it on everybody. But do you know what I mean? When you have the opportunity, you share it.

Because that's part of the Sabbath. That's part of the message. Do I understand the Gospel? As we go through these basic doctrines, we're going to do a study on the kingdom of God. Someone asked me to do a study on the kingdom of God. And we're going to do one on the Gospel. And what those things really mean. Am I understanding God as creator? Am I being holy because it's a holy day? These are all things we need to think about in connection with the Sabbath. Mark 3. I'm just cherry picking a few places here. Where Jesus was confronted about Sabbath keeping. No place does Jesus teach against the Sabbath. No place. And you won't find too many biblical scholars who disagree with that statement. He did teach about how people keep it. Because he was being accused of being a Sabbath breaker on numerous occasions. Mark 3, verse 1. He entered the synagogue again, and Amanda was there with a withered hand. So they watched him closely whether he would heal him on the Sabbath. So he might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, step forward. Then he said to them, is it lawful in the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? Now, that is an argument in first century Judaism that you will find it among the Pharisees, among the Essenes. I've mentioned this before. The Essenes, we look at the Pharisees and think, how strict can you be? Oh, the Essenes thought that the Pharisees were the most liberals out there. You know, let alone the Sadducees. They were way out here. You wouldn't even connect with them. But the Pharisees, they really were not strict enough. So these were arguments all the time. Just like arguments about divorce. It's amazing to look at the Talmud, to look at writings for the first century. And the things they just constantly argued. And there were different schools of rabbis. Hylio and Shammai. And they argued over everything. And so this is a comment. What he brings up is, should you do good on the Sabbath? Of course, yes. Should you give life on the Sabbath? I mean, shouldn't babies be born on the Sabbath? Well, yes. But they kept silent. And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardest of their hearts, he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched out his hand, and he restored it whole as the other. And the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him how they might destroy him. They wanted to kill him. The Herodians were a political party. You know, they saw Jesus as a threat politically. The Pharisees saw him as a threat religiously. But why? Because he said, we should do good on the Sabbath, and we should give life on the Sabbath. Doing good on the Sabbath is very important. That even helps us understand about activities. You know, what's amazing? The Bible does not contain long lists of do's and don'ts on the Sabbath.

I've seen people try to create long lists. I saw years and years ago a minister tried to do that. Of course, you can't do that. The Bible doesn't do that. Here's 100 things you can do on the Sabbath and 100 things you cannot do on the Sabbath. You can't find out the Bible. But there's lots of principles. There's a few things it says don't do, like don't go out and work. Because this is a holy day, and we are commanded to have a service on this day. A religious service on this day. There's things that are commanded, but the list isn't as long as you think. So we have to reason through this. We are supposed to approach the Sabbath with a very serious attitude of what is good and what is not good.

I remember the first time I had that conversation with my kids. We were going to church, and we pulled up in a red light, and there was this big van. There were two guys trying to push that van off the road, and it broke down. I'm thinking, we're going to have them. I put the flashes on, threw it in the park, jumped out of the car, ran over there. The three of us got it off, barely. I ran and jumped in the car, and it turned green. My two daughters both said, Dad, you just did work on the Sabbath.

I said, we are to do good on the Sabbath. Should I have left them sitting there? We had this long...I mean, they were we little. They were a little bit shocked that I had done this work on the Sabbath.

Yeah, I don't think anybody, any adult, would say, well, that shouldn't have done that. There are people who work on the Sabbath a lot to set up things. There were people here before the rest of us to open the door. They didn't get the little extra sleep. There were people here to set up the television camera. I mean, there are just all these things that people do on the Sabbath, and the priest did things on the Sabbath. In fact, that was one of the arguments Jesus gave. To do the work of God on the Sabbath, you're supposed to do. The rabbis worked on the Sabbath? No one thought that was wrong. It's for good, and there's no redemption part of it. It's part of the work of God to do it. Does this activity help glorify God? Does this activity help my family glorify God? Is this activity good for others to see that we're glorifying God? Sometimes with little kids, it's just letting them get rid of energy so that you don't have a nervous breakdown on the Sabbath. Right? Because they're little kids. I talked to someone once that said they hated the Sabbath because their parents made them sit all day long on the Sabbath. They just went home and had to sit. And you either had to read your Bible or just sit there. I said, well, no wonder you hate it. That's not what this is. That's why...and I'm not going to go to these places because there's many places where they kept accusing Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. And it was because of the oral law. The oral law was developed by the Jews for a purpose. We think, how crazy they were. No, they weren't. There's oral law in the church all the time. You think, what oral law do we have? Okay. How about Paul saying, it's a shame for a man to have long hair. If someone has a biblical explanation for me exactly how long is too long, I would love to see it. So, the oral law is, you figure out how long too long is. I always tell people, I can't tell you how long too long is. I just know what I see it. I can't tell you. I don't know. I mean, everybody's face is different. I don't have an exact, oh, you measure everybody's hair. That's not what it's about.

So, we have oral law, but we don't make it the same as the written law. We don't make it the same as the written law. But they created an oral law because they thought it would help them keep the commandments better. And what they did is it caused them to break the commandments. The Sabbath was a burden on people. The Sabbath was miserable.

Now, I say that in one way. The Pharisees made it that way. If you look at first century Judaism, the Sabbath was actually a celebration. Even the Jewish families today, as the sun goes down, everybody, the family, the children, they have a special meal that they've worked, that has been prepared all day. They have a very special meal. They like candles. They have a prayer. They have Bible readings that's all part of the family keeping of the Sabbath. And it's a big celebration. Which is sad that we don't do that.

You know? I mean, it's not commanded. It's a family tradition. But that, now there is part of the oral law that's a good tradition. That's a wonderful tradition. And they know this is Sabbath. That's why you'll find in the Orthodox, you know, okay, nobody can watch television. You can't even answer the phone sometimes. I mean, once again, that gets to past the point where the Bible doesn't say that. That's why there's areas here. There's boundaries. And we decide within those boundaries. We decide within those boundaries because God's working with us. That's why sometimes we look at somebody and say, well, I wouldn't do that on the Sabbath.

Somebody says, well, I wouldn't do that on the Sabbath. And you just leave it unless it's over the boundary. You know, if it's over the boundary, okay. Then we have to say, well, that's not what the Scripture says. But it's amazing how general some of these instructions are. So that we're left to consider, think about what is holy on this day. What draws us to God on this day that's different than any other day?

Because how you keep this day will affect the other six. How we keep this day affects the other six days. The closer we're drawn to God here will keep us closer to God all throughout the week. I think it's every seven days because if it was like once a month, we wouldn't even be keeping it after a while. We'd be too busy doing other stuff. I think the seventh day cycle is important. God designed it that way to bring us back to Him all the time.

I mean, some of the Jewish laws were, you know, if you throw a grape in the air and you catch it with your mouth, you're eating, which is allowed on the Sabbath. If you throw it and miss, you can't pick it up. That's work. So I guess you're stepping on grapes all day long if you're not very good at catching grapes. The one I like the most is, and I've mentioned this one before, ladies, you can't look in a mirror because if you do, you're liable to see a gray hair and pull it out.

And pulling out of here is work. So I don't know how they went to Sabbath services in the synagogue. I don't know. You can comb your hair, you just can't look at it. So I think there was even an argument of whether women can comb their hair. There didn't seem to be arguments where the men could do certain things. Well, there was with certain things, but the women really had their restrictions. So, you know, it is interesting. They never enforced a lot of those on the general populace, especially the Pharisees.

You know why? The general populace wouldn't do it. Now, the general populace in Judea were very strict Sabbath keepers. They did not open their businesses. They did not take care of their farms. They did feed their animals and water their animals. The Bible says, well, that's one of the arguments.

Jesus said, well, of course you would take care of an animal on the Sabbath. Why? Well, there's a command in the Old Testament that you're supposed to take care of your animals. It doesn't say on the Sabbath, but my implication is you can't let your... You know, if your cow was calving on the Sabbath, you would go out and help with the birth. You wouldn't let the cow and the calf die. Now, sometimes they'll do that naturally, but sometimes they need help.

That was considered life. You protected life on the Sabbath. So you did the minimal amount, but you fed your animals on the Sabbath. You gave them water on the Sabbath. So we have to be careful not to restrict it, but at the same time, we go back and forth. We go from restricting it to literally make the Sabbath just like any other day, except you come to church.

And that's not Sabbath-keeping. Sabbath-keeping is... this whole day has purpose and meaning. Now, I talked about redemption. There is something we have not... we know it, but we have not made it the importance it is. And I think it's because sometimes you can be against something so much that you miss something you should be for. The three days and three nights were coming up on Passover.

The three days and three nights that Jesus was in the grave and was resurrected. You know, I understand why so many of people who observe Sunday do so because the belief that Jesus was resurrected on Sunday morning.

If Jesus was resurrected on Sunday morning, that has to be celebrated. That has to be seen as... I mean, that's it. Because of that, salvation can take place. Because of that, eternal life can be given to us. I mean, without that, Christianity doesn't mean anything. Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no Christianity.

It doesn't exist. But when we understand, because of the Holy Days, Christianity created that timeline without the understanding of the Holy Days. We understand when Passover takes place. We understand that there are two Sabbaths in here between this time period. There's the first day of Unleavened Bread. There's a weekly Sabbath in here. We put those three days and three nights together, and he died on the evening before the Passover. And that year. Now, there's two years he could have died in, in terms of looking at the biblical story.

And both of them, three days and three nights later. And it had to be three days and three nights. Friday morning, or I mean, Friday afternoon, the Sunday morning, isn't three days and three nights. I don't care how you count it. Well, it was part of three days and three nights. You can't get part of two nights in there, no matter what you do.

You can't. It's a fiction. You can't exist. So there's always the attempt to force into something Jesus said. I, here's the proof that I am the Christ. What's the proof? I'll be in the grave three days and three nights. That's the proof. So to do away with, oh no, it's not three days and three nights. You're doing away with what he said.

This is important. This is important. This is why we don't keep Easter. Because it's based on a fiction. When it's three days and three nights, if you work back through the chronology, and that's what we need to do. We need to give a Bible study on the chronology of this. He's resurrected on the evening just before the end of the Sabbath. Jesus was resurrected on the Sabbath. You don't think that's my plan? Why? This is at the very beginning. This is the seventh day. It is holy. It is to remind you I'm the creator. It is to remind you that I'm the one who redeems you.

When does that redemption take place? At the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If he stays dead, we're lost. And he was resurrected on the Sabbath.

We have not explored that the way we should. We have not explored that the way we should. Every Sabbath, we're coming together to be reminded that God created all things through Jesus Christ, and salvation came through Jesus Christ. And it was on this day that he was resurrected. We're supposed to do that every single week.

We have not really explored that in the way that we should. That changes even the way we see the Sabbath. The importance in God's plan. We understand God's plan. We're here because we are the redeemed. We are here because we are turning to God. We are here because we understand the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and what he's doing now, what God is now doing through him in our lives. That's why we're here. It makes discipleship so much more important. I've been really pounding on discipleship on the Wednesday night Bible sites.

We can tie this all back into the Sabbath. And how important this day is.

If I don't give a sermon or Bible study on it, maybe somebody else will do a sermon on it. He's the split sermon. But to go through that, if somebody wants to do it, just let me know. To go through that. Sometimes you have to have a handout, or at least you can do it with slides or with a handout, to show you how it works. We had a Beyond Today program where Steve Myers, he's good at with props, he did it with blocks. Day blocks and night blocks. Okay, first day is, he said, that a block that all had suns on it. And here's a night, and it was dark with a moon on it, and he stacked them up. It's either three days and three nights or it's not. And no matter how you looked at it, Friday the Sunday, Friday evening, the Sunday morning, it's not three days and three nights. You couldn't make the blocks work. And the end of it was like, it can't be then. You can't do it. Simple logic wouldn't let it happen. So, when it comes to the Sabbath itself, we have to start preparing for the Sabbath before it happens. And that's very important that we do that. I'm going to wrap up here with one thing. I'm going to bring one other point in the Bible study, and then I'd like to have some discussion. But the Holy Convocation is commanded on this day. And of course, in Hebrews 10, we have that very famous passage. Because there's only three passages in the New Testament that have any discussion at all whether you should keep the Sabbath or not. All the Sabbath in the New Testament is kept. So there's only three places. Oh, there's a fourth one, but it's so weak that even good Protestant commentators will say, that's not what this means. You know, they gathered together to take a collection on Sunday morning, the first day of the week. See, they were worshipping God on Sunday. No, and said they got together to take a collection to send to Jerusalem because there was a famine. I mean, if they would have done that on Monday morning, does that mean that there was supposed to be... Monday was now the day of worship? So you have to read something back into it. You have to decide Sunday's correct and then read into it. If you read to face value, you wouldn't come to that conclusion. But Hebrews 10.

Verse 24.

Let's start verse 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up good love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching. There's another place in Hebrews where it actually uses the word. There is a keeping of the Sabbath.

But it's very interesting there. It's Sabatismos. It's the only place that word is... that Greek word is used. And the keeping of... it literally means a keeping of the Sabbath. This doesn't mean Sabbath day. It means the observance of the Sabbath day. And there still remains that for the people of God. And that passage, we won't go through that one here, but that actually ties in the Sabbath with the return of Jesus Christ.

So once again, the Sabbath is looking forward. It's not just looking back at things and then God working with us now. It actually has a prophetic meaning. The prophetic meaning of the Sabbath is the return of Jesus Christ. It's His return. And so we are to keep it to commemorate that. How much more can you stack into this without saying, wow, we should do this? We should do this. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. You know, it's been...we went through a time period here two years ago where it became very difficult to assemble together.

That's not unusual in the history of the church. In the first century, they met in the catacombs. They would sneak out and meet secretly in the sewers. We also know there's another place in Acts where they met outside the city, out in the country by the river. What's interesting, there's Roman accounts in the second century of Christians. And the Roman accounts are these people sneak out of town in the middle of the night and meet in the dark. So we went to arrest them. We actually had people infiltrate their meetings.

They meet in the dark, sing a few hymns, and then someone gets up and gives them this dissertation on, don't steal, don't lie, love your neighbor. In fact, one Roman governor wrote to one of the Caesars and said, exactly why are we persecuting these people? They're hiding out when they do what they do. They're not even trying to make a political spectacle of this.

They're going out in the middle of the night. Before setup to meet, and they're not causing trouble. There's no riots. What's the issue here? Caesar actually wrote back and said, wasn't Julius Caesar, but one of the Caesars because he was dead long before this. Caesar wrote back and said, I don't know. Just leave him alone. Unless someone drags him in the court, then you have to do something about it. Otherwise, just leave him alone. I'm not even sure. We've been doing it for so long, I'm not even sure why we're persecuting these people.

But it wasn't always easy. We faced an interesting situation where I couldn't even rent a hall. But you know what we had? We could still meet in each other's houses, which is what they did in the New Testament too. A lot of the meetings that you find in the New Testament were in people's houses. And we had the added benefit of the Internet until we could figure out what to do. And then slowly we started to figure out what we could do.

When one minister lived on the border of one state and another state, and California wouldn't let him meet. So, I think it was Arizona on the other side, he said, we don't care anymore. You know, after a couple weeks. So he just said, oh everybody, we're going to Arizona for Sabbath services. So they all drove over to Arizona for Sabbath services. Slowly we'd be able to figure out what to do.

We still had a way to meet, but that wasn't the optimal way to do it, right? The optimal way to do it is we're supposed to come together, and there's a whole lot of reasons for that. This relationship we're supposed to have with each other, the music we sing together, the experience we have as the people of God, not the person of God. We're the people of God. The experience we have together is an important part of the Sabbath service. So just because we went through our little bit of, you know, I call it our Sabbath services in the sewer, we were in our catacomb period.

It didn't mean that the Sabbath was done away with, and it sure didn't mean that we shouldn't keep Sabbath services. We were doing the best we can when we figured out what to do.

Other things will come up, and we'll have to figure. Maybe someday we'll have to sneak out in the middle of the night and meet someplace. They did it, but you'll find a lot of times they were in homes, and they've actually found, they call them church houses. They found all through the Middle East little houses with a building built onto it, and it's just a little meeting room. You know, sometimes 32, the biggest one they found was a hundred people could sit in it. And they know what it was used for because all the walls were painted with scenes from the Bible. So it was a church. But they didn't build churches because people come burn it down. They just met in people's houses. And, you know, someone that was rich enough built a little room on the side of the house. It's not always been easy. We've had it very comfortable. We have it very comfortable now. We were able to get back together. It all got fixed. But, you know, I don't want to be surprised that the government at some point doesn't attempt another thing. But we'll continue to do it the most optimal way we have. We did find it was much easier if you owned a building. Churches who owned their own building just kept doing it. Which made it a whole lot easier. They didn't have to shut down. Unfortunately, I mean, if we could buy a building, we could. And my son-in-law found a fantastic building in... It's about 40, 50 miles from here. But, you know, if we could all drive that far, we could even afford buying the building. But, you know, it's way out in the country and there's no way we could all drive that far. Some of you would be driving 80 miles to church every day or every Sabbath. It's just not possible here. I just bring that up because coming together for Sabbath services when possible is what we're supposed to do. Now, there's some people watching that can't. I mean, the Bitners are connected today. And, you know, in the pastor's update, I had some announcements there. The Bitners aren't here because her cancer's come back. And it's in her liver. No, we'll have in Nashville because we had a whole group of older people that lived into the... They're now in their late 70s, 80s, 90s. We'll have up to 30 people on a Sabbath not there watching online. And it's because of their age. And we had that opportunity to do that. They would rather be there, but they can't. You all know Mr. Vernish. He's just... Sometimes I've talked to him and he's just devastated. I can't be there. I can't drive. I have to take care of... And his wife has got Alzheimer's. He says, I can't leave her. He says, I can't hardly walk half the time. I can't be there. And after 50 years of being at Sabbath services every week, he's just devastated every week. And he's really upset. For you speakers, be glad you don't speak in Nashville. Anybody goes overtime. Sunday morning, 8 o'clock. My phone rings. And it's Bill. It's hilarious. I'll hear the phone ring and I'll look 8 o'clock. Bill's calling. Somebody must have gone overtime yesterday in Nashville.

So we stay connected. I mean, we have to... That personal connection has to be there. That's part of being here. But it's worship to... It's a corporate... I don't mean corporate. I don't mean corporation. It's a body. It's a group that worships together. And we come to Sabbath services sometimes for the wrong reasons. We don't come to the Sabbath service to argue... There's this big thing I was talking to an elder a year ago that was very upset over this. Finally got him calmed down. And now I just got something from a guy in Australia. Where did the Simeonites go? The tribe of Simeon? It's a nice thing to talk about, but it's not... Come to Sabbath services and let's argue over where the Simeonites went. That's not what the Sabbath service is all about.

So I got two guys with two different viewpoints. I don't know why they're asking me. I really don't care where the Simeonites went. I mean, I know where they went. I said it's very easy. They got absorbed into Judah. I can show you. Yeah, but where did they go after that? I don't know.

I have no idea where they went after that. Well, I do. Well, good. That's great. And he may be right. I have no idea. But I've seen people come to Sabbath services to argue things. That's not what we're here for either. We're here to worship God together as the children of God. That's what we're here for.

We're here because God commands it as Creator. We're here because God commands it because He is the Redeemer through Jesus Christ. We're here because Jesus Christ was resurrected on the Sabbath as the ultimate act of redemption. We're here because we were called to be here. We are here by invitation of God. And we were together by invitation of God when we did it through a very difficult time where none of us were happy with it. But we stayed together. We stayed together. God's Spirit keeps us together. We never gave up the Sabbath. We sure didn't give up coming together, do we? Okay. Great. We got through that trial. Just wait until the next one comes. And God will get us through again. That's the point. God always gets us through.

So the Sabbath is very, very important. We didn't even go through Isaiah. Isaiah explains how to keep the Sabbath and its principles. There's very few like thou shalt and thou shalt not. And yet there's a passage in Isaiah which describes exactly how we are to look at the Sabbath in a scriptural, Biblical viewpoint.

So this just gives an overview. What we'll do for the Bible study is we'll bring up the three or four major passages and see how you would handle that. How you would deal with that if someone brought that to you. To make sure we're grounded. That we can't somehow be influenced by someone who seems to have a very good argument. So we'll do that at the Bible. But we will eat first. Okay.

Okay.