Being Different

Thank you, Mr. Herman. It's good to hear you sing again. And good morning, brethren. I'm glad we had the A.M.ers show up today. Although I think there might be some P.M.ers or some faces I see out of the norm. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly, but hoping we'll keep it interesting enough that you don't need that nap just yet. I does see Maude being here and not seeing the students, but I told them to say hi to all the brethren in Portsmouth. I was thrilled to give them that opportunity. I've seen something printed on T-shirts and I think bumper stickers, and maybe you've seen it before. It's sort of a, I'm not sure if I'd call it an inside joke, but it's something that says, you're unique just like everyone else. And I always laugh because it tends to make me think of that type of person that wants to go out of his way to dress or act in some way that makes him stand out. Everybody noticed, I'm different. And yet we know that's not really necessary because every one of us is unique. No two people are quite the same, and that's something we all have in common. And of course, there's that different perspective. Most people at at least some point in life desperately want to not stand out, and I think in teenage especially. When you're 15 years old, you've got to wear your jeans in just the right style. And your parents might be saying, oh, you could wear my old jeans now. No, dad, I can't wear those. You've got to dance the dances that are popular. You have to listen to and maybe pretend to like the music that all the cool kids are listening to. You know, it's a human trait. We all want to be appreciated, and yet we all, we don't want to stand out too much.

And as I say this, I'm not trying to present myself as some expert on psychology, but what I do want to talk about today is being different. Our calling is something that's different from the experience of most people. God calls us to a different lifestyle. Calls us to be different people.

He calls us to be holy. Now, when I say it like that, it might make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. It has me many times, but that is what it says in the Bible. For a first Scripture, if you would turn with me to 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1 will read verses 15 and 16. I will say, it's easy to think of God as holy. We know He is, but can we be holy? Well, that's what it says here. 1 Peter 1, verse 15, But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy.

Now, the Greek word that's used here, and throughout the New Testament, is hagios. It's funny, if this were in class, I'd go over and write it on the board, and if any of you have seen my handwriting, you'd realize you wouldn't be able to read it anyways. But it's from a root word hagnos, which means separated. I'm willing to bet that many of you have heard that the easy definition that we often use in church, where holy means separated for God's purpose.

And I'm not going to correct that. That's a good definition. It's appropriate for saying how you and I can be holy. What about God? How is He separate? Well, when it says that God is holy, we could say it's representing God's purity. He's separated from anything that's sinful, from any contamination. And there are variations of hagios that are translated into the English words, like hallowed, sanctified, sacred, and so on.

There are all these words that are related. And there's a similar one in Hebrew that carries that same meaning of holy. In the Hebrew, it's kadash, which is more fun to say and easier. Kadash. It means consecrated, separated. But what I found interesting is I was going into this, and you might get the idea that I like looking at the meanings of words.

They're fun to play with. But that kadash comes from a root word that means different. It means not the normal, not ordinary. Something that's holy is different. I think God expressed the idea of being different very well when He gave a message to His priests. And that's what we'll find in Ezekiel 44 and verse 23. Now, I will note He was addressing the priests, but He wasn't particularly proud of them.

He's not giving them instruction, but reminding them that they should have been doing something different than they would. And, of course, when we're a royal priesthood in the kingdom, we will be doing this. And He's looking ahead here. Ezekiel 44 verse 23. And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the unholy. So the holy is different from the unholy and cause them to discern between the clean and the unclean. Now, of course, we should note something isn't holy just because it's different.

But a person who is holy will be different. And God said for us to be holy because He is holy. When I first heard that, I thought, yeah, God is different. And I thought, how could He be different? He's the only one. There's only one God. But it occurred to me when He first presented that to the ancient Israelites, it wasn't a culture where not everyone believed that or realized that.

God brought the Israelites out of Egypt. He made a covenant with them and taught them in His ways. And when He was doing so, He made it very clear to them He was different. He was different from those false gods, those idols that they'd seen back in the land of Egypt. And He showed early on that that was the case. He brought all those plagues on Egypt. He destroyed their economic and their military power. And He chose to do so through plagues that directly provoked some of what they thought were gods, which we know were not.

He showed that those were no gods. They had no power. And then Israel, of course, came to Mount Sinai. And God showed them that He did have power. He descended on the mountain with fire and smoke, and everything was shaking. And they heard His voice speaking the Ten Commandments. And I refer to this often because I always find it amusing. They're shaking in their shoes after that. And they went to Moses and said, Please, please, don't have God talk to us anymore. You know, lest we die, you go talk to Him, come back and tell us what He said.

But in the process of doing that, though, they did agree to God's proposal. That's one of the reasons we liken it to a marriage. God said, Okay, I want you to be my people. I'm making a proposition. If you agree to worship me and obey my laws, I'll make you a special people above everyone else. And I'll give you these tremendous blessings. And they accepted. They said, Yes, we'll do that. We'll do whatever God says. And in the instructions that He gave them, I want to turn to Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 20 to begin here.

I should say to begin in this section of the sermon, because I want to spend a little time here. Among the many instructions that God gave, were some to show how different He was and how He wanted them to be. Let's look in Leviticus 20, beginning in verse 6.

And again, He's showing He's different from other ideas of God. He says, The person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits to prostitute himself with them, I'll set my face against that person and cut him off from his people. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the Eternal your God, and you shall keep my statutes and perform them.

I am the Eternal who sanctifies you. I see this in some ways as God saying, Don't look to those false gods, not to demons. He said, I'm God. I'm different from those things. And indeed He was, and He had demonstrated it to them.

And God says that He can make people holy. No other false so-called gods can do that. No wizards or mediums or spiritists. Now, a big part of how God makes people holy is by having them keep His statutes. As He says here, live by His laws. I like that, because we might say, How can we be holy? Well, He builds some of that in. He says, Be holy in your conduct. And what you do? It's no coincidence that we have our Bible as open to the book of Leviticus. Actually, I laughed. I didn't realize that. I wrote that in my notes. And of course you have your Bible as open to Leviticus.

I just asked you to turn there. But we could say that the whole theme of the book of Leviticus is, Be holy for God as holy. That's the way I sum it up. Now, Leviticus has a lot of instructions specifically for the priesthood. It tells what sacrifices to make and for what purpose and how to do it. It tells them how to operate the tabernacle, which would later translate into the temple. And it says a lot about God's people being holy. And I want to focus on that. It's not just for the priests. There are things that were for the nation, the people that God had brought out of Egypt.

Telling them how to act to be holy. And I'll confess, studying this book for teaching it in class inspired me in this sermon. I thought, there's some things I want to share and talk about. This book wasn't just for the priests and just for the Levites. It's for us. It's for Christians. And that's why we started with 1 Peter, where he quoted and said, Hey, God wants you to be holy, for he is holy. And this section of the book of Leviticus tells us a lot about how to do it.

If you'll turn back a chapter to Leviticus 19, let's read the beginning of that chapter. It'll sound very familiar. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel. Notice, not to the priests, not just to the Levites, to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Eternal, your God, am holy. And again, I could summarize, God's saying, I'm not like the other so-called gods. I want you to not be like other people. And throughout this chapter, that idea, I think, is summarized by what I'd call a shorthand phrase. We'll see it over and over again, where he says, I am the Lord.

Of course, that's the L-O-R-D in all capital letters, which we know is translated from the Y-H-W-H. Most people believe probably pronounced Yahweh, perhaps another way. But I'm not worried about the pronunciation. It's just when he says, I am the Lord, we often say Eternal because of the meaning.

That's a shorter version of saying, I am holy, so you be holy. Let's notice verse 3. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and keep my Sabbath. I am the Eternal, your God. God's people need to have different family relationships than is common in the world. God's people need to keep the Sabbath, both the weekly and the annual. That's something most people don't do. And it makes God's people holy. It makes them different.

Now, I'm not going to read verse 4. Of course, it says what we just read in the other chapter. I want to skip down. We could work our way through this entire chapter, but then we probably wouldn't end on time. Notice verses 11 and 12. You shall not steal nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God.

I am the Eternal. Because God is holy, because He's different and special, He needs His people to be different. He wants us to be honest and fair. They need to use clean and pure language. That'll make you stand out in the world. Look at verse 14. You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God. I am the Eternal. Being holy to God means being a person that doesn't take advantage of others, even when they wouldn't know you did it.

That's sort of the meaning here. Don't put a stumbling block in front of the blind, even though He would never know you did it. Or don't say bad things about a deaf person, even though you know He can't hear you.

No, you're better than that. Act the right way all the time, not just to avoid being caught, not just to avoid the punishment, but as we often say, do the right thing, because it is the right thing. Let's turn ahead to verse 17. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. Now, this sounds...

If we read this alone, it's not, yeah, go chew out your neighbor. It doesn't mean just that, but don't let him keep on sinning. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Why? Because I am the eternal your God, he says. Jesus later would say, this is the second great commandment.

The first, of course, is love God with all your heart, your soul, and your might. The second is love your neighbor as yourself. Sure is something that will make you stand out. And I can imagine people saying, what? You don't hold grudges? You really do love your neighbor? You're willing to help someone else overcome a sin and not talk about him behind his back, or not do so with acrimony or a grudge?

That's different. I want to skip ahead again. I plan this in advance, knowing I didn't want to explore every detail here. But in verse 26, You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. And you shall not make any cuttings on your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo marks upon you. I am the Eternal. Our understanding is all those practices listed were aspects of how the various Canaanite tribes worshiped their false gods.

They attempted to contact or gain favor from these spirits that they believed existed by these various means, which included cutting their hair and their beards in various ways, printing marks on themselves, doing cuttings. Now, I sometimes wonder, if God were to give those instructions in modern days, would He say something like, Don't go checking out Ouija boards. Don't be reading your horoscope. Don't celebrate pagan holidays. And don't go around looking like a freak. Don't cut your hair and beard in some weird way and make a bunch of piercings. Don't use your skin like it's a coloring book.

Be different. Be pure looking. As I said, there's reasons He pulled those particular examples out, but I think we could generalize it to say, God wants you to look different. I wonder, and this might not be as common today, but a few years ago you saw a lot of teens and young adults doing what they call that goth look. You know, dye your hair jet black and wear black lipstick and kind of whitish makeup. I could see God saying, Don't do that.

Don't try to make yourself look like what you think is a vampire. They're not real anyways. Be different. God said, Be the way I made you to look. Look down in verse 32. You shall rise up before the gray-headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your God. I am the eternal. And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you. You shall love him as yourself. For you are strangers in the land of Egypt. And then again, the summary. I am the eternal your God. Another way to sum up a lot of this would be to say, Treat people nice.

Now, I think the detail is okay. He tells us how to treat people nice. But we respect the elderly. Don't take advantage of people. Don't neglect people who are in need. I called you for something different than that. Now, I hesitate to put words in God's mouth. We want to go by what the Bible does say, not just how I paraphrase it. But God says to do this.

Go out of your way to be different in the right way. It's a shame this should not be different, but it is. Treating people like this will make you stand out. In verse 35, You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have an honest scale, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hymn. I am the eternal your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Be honest and fair in your business dealings. That's what this is about. Back when they bought goods and they had to pull out a rock that weighed a certain amount to put on the scales.

Make sure that rock weighs the amount you say it does. They might have had metal weights, too. I'm not saying they were in the Stone Age. But don't swindle to try to take advantage of someone in a negotiation. Be honest. Be fair. Again, how sad is it that that's unusual and different? But God's people are to be different. We're to be holy. And the instructions we've been reading show that there are many practical concrete things that we can do. That's part of being holy the way God is holy.

It's not just sitting in sort of exuding righteousness. Have the glow of sitting. I imagine a little kid might say, I've got to be holy. Maybe people will see it coming out of me. But God says, no, no, here, do this. And don't do that. The things you do, be holy in your conduct. God wants us to stand out in the way we think. Stand out in what we say. Stand out in what we do. If we think about what people notice most about us, the two things they see first are usually that we follow the dietary laws and that we keep the Sabbath.

And I was thinking, Mr. Clore was going right down the line of what I wanted to say here, which is good. It's meant to fit together. Many of us early committed to memory that Leviticus 11 is the clean and unclean meats chapter.

And I've been in the church most of my life, and I remember hearing and reading things that say, oh yes, this is so good for your health. And eating the unclean meats is bad for your health, and it does this and that.

And those are all true. Pork is bad for you. So is shellfish. What I found interesting as I was preparing this is that's not the reason that God said He said not to eat those things. If you turn a page or so to Leviticus 20, we'll read beginning in verse 24. And as I said, I'm not discounting the health reasons, but God said, reason to not eat unclean meats is because you're holy. Verse 24, But I have said to you, you shall inherit their land, and I'll give it to you to possess a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the eternal your God who has separated you from the people.

Remember, that's a version of saying, I made you holy. I made you different. You shall therefore, because I separated you, distinguish between clean animals and unclean animals, between unclean birds and clean. You shall not make yourselves abominable, by beast or by bird. Or by any kind of living thing that creeps on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.

The alternative is, you shall be holy to me, for I, the eternal, am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. As I said, I think this seems to be saying that God's saying, over and above any physical or scientific reasons for obeying the dietary laws, this is a clear statement that God specifically designed it as a way for His people to be different.

Now, other people, they can eat just any old thing, but not God's people. Not God's people, because they're holy. They're different. What we don't eat makes us stand out. It marks us as different. And it can be uncomfortable. People are like, why aren't you eating the ham sandwich? You better order an extra pizza without pepperoni. But it's good to remember the blessings that come from obedience, the fact that God does want us to stand out and be different.

We're pretty familiar with the most famous story in the Bible, but I still want to turn briefly to the book of Daniel. It's in the first chapter of Daniel. We see an example of four young men who definitely stood out because they wanted to follow these teachings.

Daniel 1. Not bad to review it. It's not just a story for little kids. Of course, remember it's Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. And I cheated. I've got that written down. You remember what were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's original names. It was that. But these men, you know, they were among the captives taken from Judah. When Babylon was in the process of conquering, but they didn't wipe them all out at once. They took some in waves. And the first group, they took the wealthy, the upper class back. And they were willing to train some of them to serve in government, as we see here in verse 3. Then the king instructed Ashphonaz, the master of the eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel, and some of the king's descendants, and some of the nobles, young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge, and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king's palace, to whom they might teach the language in the literature of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed for them a daily provision of the king's delicacies and of the wine which he drank, and three years of training for them, that at the end of that time they might be able to serve before the king. And among those of the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Michiel, and Azariah.

So we see these men, they're going into a residential college-level training program. Only in this case, they didn't apply and wait for word back and hope their SAT scores were high enough. They were drafted into it. So they didn't have a lot of choice, and then they discover, hey, we're in this residential program, and they set our diet for us, but it doesn't match with what I was taught when I was young. So in verse 8, Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank, nor he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into favor and good will of the chief of the eunuchs, and the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, well, I fear my Lord the king. He's appointed your food and drink. Why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are your age? Then you'd endanger my head before the king. He said, okay, you want to be different, but I'm afraid the difference is going to be a bad one. You guys are going to be unhealthy and scrawny, and he didn't want that. We could say here was a perfect excuse. Daniel could have said, well, I tried. I did my best. I guess I have to eat it now. But he persisted a little bit further. Daniel said to the steward, whom the chief of the eunuchs had said over Daniel, Henneniah, Michiel, and Azariah, well, test your servants for ten days. Let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be examined before you and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king's delicacies. And as you see fit, so deal with us. So he consented with them in this matter, tested them ten days. At the end of the ten days, their features appeared better, fatter, and flesh, than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies. This doesn't make it sound like eating clean food is a diet plan, but I don't think fatter and flesh means that. Thus the steward took away their portion of the delicacies and the wine that they were to drink and gave them vegetables. Now, this is a familiar story, but just think of this as the beginning of their careers, of distinguished careers. And I wanted to use that word because distinguished is another variation of saying separate, standing out, being noticeable. And they did stand out. Later, of course, the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood out for saying, we're not going to worship that idol. And we don't have to, we're not worried if you throw us into the fiery furnace. Daniel stood out for not being willing to stop praying to God. And he served, amazingly, not only in a high level in the Babylonian Empire, but then in the Persian Empire that conquered it. Boy, Daniel was different. He was rare. And just think that being different started with something like this when they were young. It just makes me think. The next time I'm in a situation where I don't want to stand out by saying, sorry, I can't eat that. And most of us have been in a situation where someone cooked something special. You know, boy, I've been slaving all day and we made this great roast pork loin.

And you know, you hate to embarrass them or, you know, do something to make you look different. But we want to remember where it fits in the context. What God called us to do.

Now, there's lots of things we could say about how being holy affects the way we use our time and how we relate to other people. Let's focus on two of the most obvious. God made the Sabbath holy. And of course, I know you know that. That's why you're here.

But we can either treat it as holy or not.

And that's something that'll make us different. In the book of Ezekiel, God made a statement about ancient Israel. Actually, I'll read this to you. It's in Ezekiel 20 in verse 16.

And it's instructive of what He expects of us. He said, because they despised my judgments and didn't walk in my statutes, but they profaned my Sabbath.

Profane means to treat something as the opposite of being holy. And all through that chapter, and in much of the book of Ezekiel, God makes that point. Most Israelites, normal ordinary ones profaned the Sabbath. They didn't treat it as something holy.

I want to look at the story of one who was different. If you're still open to Daniel, you'll have to go back several pages to the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a great example of someone who stood out. He did something different.

Nehemiah, we'll read in verse 13.

I mentioned that Daniel served on into the Persian Empire. Nehemiah was also among the captives or descendants of the captives who were there. And he rose to a high position in the government.

And because of that, when he learned that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, and it made him sad to hear that, his position with the king enabled him to be appointed governor and to go to Jerusalem and lead an effort to build up the walls. Okay, I don't want to talk about building the walls, but something he did afterwards. Something where he stood out. And he was concerned about the Sabbath. Nehemiah 13, verse 15. He says, And I said to them, So he takes action. He does more than just words. He says, And I posted some of my servants at the gates, so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath. Now the merchants and the sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. And I warned him. I said to them, Why do you spend the night around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you. I just love that turn of phrase. Not the kind of laying on of hands that we do occasionally here. From that time on, they came no more on the Sabbath. I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves. That they should go and guard the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day. Okay, so one group of people was profaning the Sabbath, treating it as something that was not holy. He said, No, let's sanctify it. It's worth us remembering, we can't make the Sabbath holy. God already did that. We can either treat it as holy or not treat it as holy.

And it's worth us noting also, we don't have the responsibility like Nehemiah did for a whole city or a province. We have a responsibility. Responsibility. I've been having trouble all week. My tongue's just not working. But it's for our own lives. And we won't necessarily drastically stand out from the other people here. We're all wanting to keep the Sabbath holy. But our neighbors will probably notice. Many of your coworkers, many of you might have jobs where sometimes they ask you to come in, or they ask a lot of the people to come in to put in some extra time on Saturdays, and you have to stand out. It makes you different. We should seem different to those people, like Nehemiah did to those merchants. I want to consider another pretty drastic example of someone who stood out. If you'll turn to John 2. I can cover this quickly because it's another case that we heard referenced in the sermonette. Well, see, some people would take bold action. They would make sure everyone knew when something wasn't done right. And Jesus Christ was one of those when occasion called for it. John 2 will begin in verse 13. Now the pastor over of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. We know that was his custom. And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. So he took action, and I think he knew in advance that they were there. So as Mr. Kloor said, he prepared ahead of time. He was ready to do what he needed to do. He had made a whip of cords. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. He poured out the changers' money, overturned the tables. And he said to those who sold doves, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, "'Zeal for your house has eaten me up.'" Now we may not be like Jesus running people off if they profane God's temple. And of course, we don't have to worry about a physical building being a temple. But we shouldn't lose sight that we're in the temple of God right now. We're among God's people.

In 1 Peter 2 and verse 5, he said that the church is God's temple, a spiritual temple. And no less holy by being a spiritual temple instead of a physical one. We can make the case it's more so. I don't want to make the case that it's the job of any one of us to start running around and straightening people up if they're not doing things the way we think.

Our meeting together, though, could be seen as being a function of being at God's temple. How do we make a difference in our lives when we come to that temple, when we meet with them? Do we dress different? I can see that we do. Actually, I see a group of people in this very room most days of the week that aren't dressed quite like this.

Of course, they're coming among perhaps the temple of God, but not on the Sabbath day. But we want to show honor and respect. When we're among God's people, do we steer our conversation to things that are not the ordinary? We know Isaiah 58 gives us some good instruction on that. Treating God's Sabbath as different, as holy. Treating God's people as different. Treating them as holy. That should be part of how we make ourselves different, how we make ourselves holy.

And I'll remind you, this isn't my conclusion yet, so don't put your Bibles away, but... We don't want to lose sight of God's instruction. Be holy, for I am holy. And thinking of the examples I've been citing, I could see how some people might think, Oh, you know, Mr. Duncan was saying, we've got to be like Jesus cleansing the temple, crack the whip. Or be like Nehemiah threatening to lay hands on people, taking bold action. You might think of Peter at the Garden of Gethsemane, pulled out his sword and cut off the air of the high priest's servant.

And you might be one of the people thinking, um, yeah, that's not me. That's not my type of action. I don't do that. And if you're one of those people, you would be correct if you said, well, does the Bible say to do that? Some people did, and they stood out and were different. But what does the Bible say we have to do? I want to turn to Matthew chapter 19, not for a case of what it shows us to do. Well, it does tell us what to do, but I also like to turn to this often to point out what it does not say we have to do.

I usually use it for this purpose when we're talking about prophecy, because there are some people that love prophecy so much, they get into it maybe to an extreme and focus on it a little more than is healthy. And I say there are just some. This is the story of the young man who came to Jesus and said, what do I have to do to have eternal life?

It's Matthew 19 starting in verse 16. Behold, one came and said to him, good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? Jesus said, what do you call me? Good. No one's good but one. That's God. But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Which ones? Well, don't murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And of course we know the young man will go on to say, well, I've been doing this. And Jesus will say, look, if you want to go further, sell what you have and follow me.

But one of the things I often point out is prophecy. Jesus says, if you want life, keep the commandments. He doesn't say, if you want life, you've got to learn the intricacies of the 70 weeks prophecy. And you've got to know where the place of safety is and identify the two witnesses. Okay. What we could also read into this is, he doesn't say, if you want life, you better carry around a whip of cords to drive the animals out of the temple.

You've got to be willing to lay hands on people who are violating the Sabbath. He didn't say to do that. Now, Nehemiah was in the position that he needed to do that. Jesus Christ obviously was in a position where he needed to take that action. He doesn't command us all to do those things, but he did command us to be different. And that's where I want to look at one more example today to show that there's a different way of being different.

I'm not looking at my notes. I probably wouldn't have written it that way. But there is more than one way to stand out from a crowd. And this one really strikes me, I think, as being kind of interesting. And it shows that sometimes the way we can be different is by a calm, cool perseverance in doing the right thing, in living God's way, in being different, but not necessarily flamboyant.

We're going to be going to 1 Chronicles 21. But I'll mention, there's a story. It's in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. Sorry, I had to look and see if I said that right. It's the story of King David deciding to do a census. And I'm not going to focus on David and his motivation so much, but he tells his commander, Joab, go out and number all the fighting men so I might know the number. And Joab isn't really keen to do it, but David prevails and sends him. And then we find out that God wasn't happy. We presume that it's because David, perhaps, was leaning on his own military power and losing touch with God.

But we know he did wrong, and God confronts him and says, you're going to be punished. I'll give you some choices. You know, you can have, I believe, it's 3 years of being defeated before your enemies, 3 months... No, 3 years of drought, 3 months of running before your enemies. You can tell I wanted to focus on the 3rd one. Or 3 days of plague. You choose. Actually, he had the seer, Gad, come and ask him, tell me what so I can go back to God and tell him.

David, by this time, has learned a lesson, and he's smart. He says, don't let me fall into the hand of man. You know, people will do bad things. I'll trust God. He'll be merciful.

And that's exactly what happened. God sends an angel to bring plague. 70,000 people die. And the angel is approaching Jerusalem, and God is merciful. He says, it's enough. He tells the angel, stop there. That's where I do want to get into the Bible, look at the story. And actually, this story is told, as I said, in 2 Samuel, but also in 1 Chronicles. And the version in 1 Chronicles chapter 1 includes one small detail that really stands out to me.

Well, actually, I should say it stood out to Sue, because I read over it a bunch of times without really noticing it. And when she was reading, she said, hey, Frank, did you notice this before that this happens? And I said, huh, that's pretty neat. So what will happen is I said, well, I've got you guys turning there, and I didn't bother to turn. 1 Chronicles 21, beginning in verse 16.

Actually, I wanted to start in verse 16. Sorry. I said 16 and started with 18.

David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Eternal standing between the earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. So the angel is visible, holding a sword. And David and the elders clothed in sackcloth fell on their faces. They're very humble and probably a bit scared. David said to God, wasn't it I who commanded the people to be numbered? I'm the one who sinned and done evil indeed. These sheep, what have they done? Let your hand be, I pray, O Lord, my God, be against me and my Father's house, but not against your people. David's acknowledging his responsibility. And this does teach us something about the burden of responsibility and how the people under that leadership are affected. But I want to focus the lesson on something different. Now, verse 18, Therefore the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, so that the prophet comes to David, he should go and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. God knows this fellow by name. Who was Ornan? I should say, if you were looking in 2 Samuel, it calls him Arauna, which is a spelling difference. I'm not sure why. But the Jebusites were a Canaanite people who had been in the Promised Land before the Israelites came in. And as we know, the Israelites didn't kill all of them the way God told them to. In some cases, they let some of them live. And Jebus had been the name of Jerusalem. So people that lived in that area were called Jebusites. And David let some of them live even after he conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital. I'm presuming, and I think Ornan will bear this out, that those who retained their land and became prominent, at least living there in the capital, adopted or chose to worship the true God. And I think we can make a case for Ornan doing that. That he knows God. Obviously God knows him. God named him by name. I think Ornan knows who God is, and perhaps is worshipping him and enjoying the blessings of it.

Let's read how Ornan reacted when this angel shows up. It's in 1 Chronicles 21, verse 20. Because David is going up, so he's on his way. It says, Ornan continued threshing wheat. Can you imagine that? This is a sight that made some men probably faint dead away. Perhaps some wet their pants. Ornan's four sons ran for their lives and hid. Ornan, I imagine, looks, and goes back to work. Now, you might say, well, he was deranged or he didn't know what he was looking at.

But I think what he did was different because he knew what he needed to be doing. He thought, I'm living the right way of life. I'm persevering in the work that God's given me. I don't need to run and hide. And he didn't. And notice, he also didn't confront the angel. He knew what his job was. He knew, it's not my job. I'm not a prophet. I'm not a king.

But he was willing to support the king when the king arrived soon afterwards, which he does. Here in verse 21. Oh, I did 20. Yeah. So David came to Ornan. Ornan looked and saw David, and he went out from the threshing floor. So it's not that he's unwilling to pause his work. It's just he didn't have to deal with the angel. That wasn't his job. But the king shows up. He went out, bowed before David with his face to the ground. David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar on it to the eternal. You shall grant it to me at the full price, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people. Ornan is more than happy to do all he can to support God's government and his work. Ornan said to David, Take it for yourself. Let my Lord the king do what is good in his eyes. Look, I also give you oxen for burnt offering, the threshing implements for wood, the wheat for grain offering. I give it all. Ornan might have been pretty wealthy. He doesn't stand out, though, for his wealth. He stands out for being different from everyone else. He wasn't like the people that ran and hid or panicked. And King David said to Ornan, No, I'll surely buy it for the full price. I won't take what is yours for the eternal or offer burnt offerings with that which cost me nothing. So David gave Ornan 600 shekels of gold by weight. And we go on to read that he did build the altar.

And although it doesn't say so specifically, if you read on through here and into the next chapter, you'll probably come to the same conclusion that most Bible scholars do, that this ended up being the exact site where they would build the temple. God consecrated that place, and most scholars believe that that's actually the spot that Abraham, many hundreds of years earlier, had brought Isaac and was about to sacrifice him, that this was on Mount Moriah.

It belonged to Ornan at one time.

As I was saying, we so often focus on David's motivation, what David did, and we should. They're very important. But I see Ornan as being something else. Someone who was different, and I've been focusing on how to be holy we need to be different. He was willing to give what it took to support God's work, but he didn't draw attention to himself. He was able to be calm and cool, do what he needed to do. And that's a valid way, I think, of being different from the rest of the world at times.

I think that's a way that, or maybe I should say, we can be different and be holy as God is holy without being flamboyant and commanding the attention of crowds and making everyone follow me. Some personalities and temperaments do that naturally. Some don't. I see this story about Ornan as partly a way of God saying, that's okay, you don't have to do all that. You can be different in a different way. As I said, we're all unique. And ironically, we're all the same in that.

But we're pretty unusual in this world. We're called to be holy, to be different from the profane. We need to be different in what we eat, in the way we dress, what we think, say and do.

And people will notice, and they should notice. We're different because we're God's people. Only God can make something holy.

And He called you. God makes you holy. But we need to all focus on being holy as God is holy.