Bible Study: March 6, 2024

Okay, so we are going to finish Nehemiah perhaps tonight. We'll see how much conversation there is on Nehemiah. Nehemiah 13 is quite an interesting chapter, as you all know. As we have been going through the book of Nehemiah, we've seen, in Ezra we saw the temple built, we saw Nehemiah commissioned to go and build the wall and to complete the repair of the wall and the gates in Jerusalem. He kept his focus despite all the distractions and all the threats and everything that came his way. He got that wall done in 52 days. And in the process, there was also the spiritual rebuilding of Judah as they looked into the book of the law, saw what God wanted, realized that they had been straight from what God's will was, and then readily turned themselves back into it to begin to follow God. As we come to chapter 13, we have Nehemiah who has been away from Jerusalem for a while. You'll remember—we'll go back to it in a little bit—but in Nehemiah 10, you'll remember that the people made a covenant with God, that everything that they read in the Bible that they were going to do, that they would keep the Sabbath holy, that they would not intermarry with the people of the lands, that they would keep up the temple. They even pledged to give a portion of their income to keep the temple up, even to bring the wood in so that there was a perpetual fire burning in that temple. And so then Nehemiah was there for a while, went back, went back to where he was with King Artaxerxes as a cupbearer, and now chapter 13 we find him coming back, coming back to Jerusalem. And what he finds there isn't something that pleases him. So let's pick it up here on chapter 13 verse 1. It says, on that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people, and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the assembly of God, because they had not met the children of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. So I don't think we have to go back and rehearse that in the Old Testament.

As people came out of Egypt, as Israel came out of Egypt, we remember Amalek attacked them, and God said there would be enmity with Amalek from generation to generation. Here we have Moab, the Ammonites, and the Moabites who came out, and they didn't extend any kind of courtesy to Israel. They didn't meet her with bread and water. Instead, they hired Balaam to curse them as they tried to stop Israel from being free. And it says that at the end of verse 13, our God turned the curse into a blessing. Of course, you remember the story of Balaam and Balaam, how the donkey spoke. And Balaam, as much as he tried to bring a curse on Israel, God always turned it around that it became a blessing instead. So it was. Here's a great example of the people of Nehemiah's time, a lesson and an encouragement to us. So it was, when they heard the law, that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel. So what they had done was allowed people into their gates that were a mixed company, and they were having an adverse effect on the people. You remember in Deuteronomy, I know it's been read several times in services over the years, you know, God said, don't intermarry with the unbelievers because they will take you away. You will tend to follow them rather than them following you. And so when they were intermixing with the people there at the land, that is what had happened. We're going to see that Israel strayed from the law, even though they made that covenant. And when Nehemiah was there to watch over them, they followed things. But when Nehemiah left, things got to be a little bit, a little bit, not so much that they were following God. In the first floor, we find another surprising thing that Israel or that Judah allowed to happen at that time. It says before this, Eliashib. Now we'll remember Eliashib. Remember he was the high priest when we had the map of Jerusalem, the walls being rebuilt. We had Eliashib's house that was there in the midst that was going to be repaired. But Eliashib was working on the wall along with everyone else to repair the wall. Before this, it says, Eliashib the priest, having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God, was allied with Tobiah of all people. Now you remember Tobiah, right? Sandballot and Tobiah. They were the two that were against Nehemiah. They were there threatening them in the end, almost threatening them death. They were doing anything they could to stop the rebuild or the repair of the wall. So it just seems unconscionable, really, that Eliashib, the high priest, knowing that Tobiah and Sandballot were against the rebuilding of the wall and that they fought against Nehemiah and all those chapters that we read of what would happen, that he would actually enter into an alliance with him. Kind of reminds you of 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, where God says, don't be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. We often look at that as a marriage, but it also means in a partnership. Here, this alliance between a high priest of God and Tobiah, someone who was fighting, fighting against the rebuilding of the wall there. So Eliashib and Tobiah are in an alliance, and he, Eliashib, had prepared for Tobiah a large room, where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil, which were commanded to be given to the Levites and singers and big keepers and the offerings for the priests. I want to pause there because, you know, here we have Tobiah. They've given him a room in the temple, where previously, notice the word previously, all the tithes and all these things that Judah was bringing to God, they were stored there. It tells us something about what had happened.

Somehow, the tithe, the frankincense, the grain offerings, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil that were to be given to the Levites wasn't there anymore. Somewhere along the line, the people stopped doing what they had committed to do in support of the temple and the work of God. And so the storeroom was there and the lyathip allowed Tobiah to move in to the temple, something that should never have happened in the house of God. And so Nehemiah, you know, he's seeing all this. In verse 6, he says, I've come back now to Jerusalem. This is kind of what I'm finding when I get there.

You can imagine he was surprised, disappointed, and probably a little bit angry with with the Jews there during that time because they had allowed these things to just deteriorate and fall into disrepair. In verse 6, then, it says, but during all this, I wasn't in Jerusalem. For the 32nd year of our desert cities, king of Babylon, I had returned to the king.

Then after certain days, I obtained leave from the king, and I came to Jerusalem, and I discovered the evil, the evil that Eliasib had done for Tobiah, and preparing a room for him at the courts of the house of God. That was an evil thing. It's hard to imagine what Eliasib was even thinking about when he did that. He knew what the regulations or what the laws, if we want to use that word, for the temple of God were, and yet he went ahead and did that, as in compromised in his mind.

It shows the danger of just, you know, that Tobiah must have somehow talked to him and convinced him in some cunning and clever way that, yeah, that would be okay. Let me just be in the house of God, even though he was an enemy for all practical purposes. You have to wonder what Tobiah did and how Eliasib allowed that to happen. And Nehemiah, it says there in verse 8, he grieved bitterly. You know, we see the house of God in disrepair. Today is not a physical house. Today is the spiritual temple that God is building in us. But when we see that in disrepair, and we might wonder, how did I allow myself to do this?

When I look into the Bible and think, whoa, I'm reading about me and the things that I shouldn't be doing, how did I allow that into my mind, into my heart, into my behavior, or whatever it is? Or when we see it in others, or we see in a church things that, you know, that just shouldn't be in the church of God, because we know the way of God.

He gives us His Spirit, and He gives us the strength to follow Him and to be cognizant of Him all the time. And so, you know, it saddens us and it grieves us if we see the house of God in disrepair. Verse 8, I just read, it grieved me bitterly. Therefore, I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room. You can just kind of picture Nehemiah as he comes back and he sees this, and he's stunned by what he sees. He kind of reminds me of Jesus Christ, you know, in the marketplace when they made the temple a marketplace, and he turned over all the tables, because he was just so amazed that they had turned, you know, the temple of God into a marketplace and drove out all the animals and everything.

And Nehemiah had the same type thing. How could you do this to the house of God? How could you, how could that happen? In verse 9, he says, I commanded them to clean the rooms. I brought them, I brought back into them the articles of the house of God with the grain offering and the frankincense. So some of it had just been moved out, specifically cleaned out, just so that Tobiah could move in. Not as much as it was there before, the store room wasn't full, but what was left was moved out so that Tobiah could move in.

And then he says, I also realized that the portions for the Levites hadn't been given to them. There just wasn't, there just wasn't the supply, there just wasn't the support for the house of God that the people had pledged that they would do. I realized the portions hadn't been given them, for each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. The work of God just sort of stopped. They all went back to their old jobs to support themselves.

And it was kind of a sorry, sorry situation that had happened while Nehemiah was gone. While everything was set up, all the zeal was there when Nehemiah was there to do the work of God. They all revere into God, just him being absent a while. Absent a while, they everything sort of just go back to the way it was that even the Levites had to go back to the fields to work.

Nothing had been done. And there is a lesson for that in us, for us in that. When God is watching over us, and when God is there, and we have someone watching what we're doing, and we're there encouraging each other and working with each other, we can obey the will of God, especially when we see each other on Sabbath, and we're there on Sabbath. You know, it's what happens during the rest of the week when there isn't someone watching over us.

I heard someone, I think it was Aaron Dean, gave an example. I thought that was really, really good. You'll remember Daniel in the book of Daniel, this Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, remember, got thrown into the furnace of fire. And I mean, they were just because they wouldn't bow down to the king. And Daniel is notably absent from that whole story. It was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's as if God was saying, what will Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do without the leadership of Daniel?

Will they stand up for me? Will they still show the same faith in me? Or is it Daniel that they will do it for Daniel more than me? So God will give us the opportunities in our life, but He will see what is really in our hearts. Do we really believe Him? Do we really have faith in Him? Will we really follow Him? Or will we only do it when someone is watching over us? And so, you know, God is always there. He's always watching over us. But we have those opportunities that He gives us to show, yes, we believe you.

Yes, we have faith in you. Yes, we trust you. And even when no one else is looking, we will obey you and put you first. Here, you know, the people of Judah and Nehemiah's time, they failed. While Nehemiah was there, they did everything. But then when their leader was absent and they were in the lyre ship, did not stand up for the law of God, He didn't make the people do it. He didn't remind them. In fact, He became one of them to just compromise and allow things to fall down around Him.

The people followed. We have to all be people. We all have to be people who stand in the gap, as we've talked about from Ezekiel 22, that will stand up for God's law and not let the gaps in that wall open up to allow evil in. They repaired the wall, but then when Nehemiah was away for a while, they let the evil back in. They let the evil back into Judah. So while they do very well, and we're going to see them do very well again when it's brought to their attention that they have strayed from God, hopefully they learned a lesson just like we would.

We all have to learn to stand in the gap and be there for God. So Nehemiah sees all of this. In verse 11, it says, He contended with the rulers. Why? Why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered them together and set them in their place. And then all of Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse. So, okay, let's get back to what God said to do.

Let's do it his way. Let's do the work of God. Let's do it the way he said to do. He made it clear what we are to do. It's pretty clear that God gives us. So they brought all the things back into the storehouse, and I appointed Nehemiah as, in verse 13, as treasures over the storehouse. Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Padiah.

And next to them was Hanan, the son of Zechor, the son of Mataniah, for they were considered faithful, and their task was to distribute to their brethren. And so everything that was resolved. Nehemiah came back, put the house in order. Everything was back away again. And then notice, you know, Nehemiah's prayer to God there in verse 14.

He says, Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and don't wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for its services. I did this for you, Nehemiah said. It had to be done. I stood in the gap. We've repaired the wall, the spiritual wall again, and now the gates of the city are secure, and your will is being done in it. So Nehemiah, you know, God inspired this writing to remember, remember I did this.

And God was very pleased with what he did. Then we come into verse 15. And I'm sure there's going to be some...

Well, before we go there, are there any questions on what we've just read before we get into how they were breaking the Sabbath, the beginning of verse 15? Okay. Yes, sir. There's some history in this family of Eliashib. Eliashib, huh? Yeah, they said that his grandson Manasseh had been married to, what's his name, Sanbalat's daughter? Ah, yes, yes. And so this is why they were so unhappy, especially with the separation of the husbands and the wives, because they didn't. And later on, when he died, and his father... I don't remember if his father got it, but his grandson thought that he would get it if only they had been faithful, but they weren't. So he was very vengeful. So they say that Sanbalat set up a temple in Samara for them. So they had another, almost like what that one king did in the northern country. Okay, very interesting. Yeah, I think it doesn't talk about all that later on, but it does mention Sanbalat being married to someone in Eliashib's family. Yeah, so they were rejected from the Great Ascent. Very good. They couldn't be part of the Sanhedrin. Yeah, so you can kind of see how everything just kind of got mixed in together. They just let the ways of the land in. And any of us could let that happen, too. We always have to guard against the ways of the world. Hey, Rajeev and Sandy.

I was reading through the Bible commentary just to prepare for the study, and in front of a comment, I never heard that the book of Malachi was written, I think, in 430 BC. During that gap when Nehemiah had gone back to the king, and he was addressing the same issues that Nehemiah is in chapter 13, and they think he may well have been prophesying to Jerusalem, trying to get him on the right track at that time. That was in our Bible commentary, the UCG one? Yes, on page 8 under the Nehemiah studies. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, I hadn't heard that either.

I even read that, so I don't know how I overlooked that one. Okay, very good. Hey, Bill.

Hello, everybody. It's Wednesday. Sam once said good-bye. Xavier said that it was very important about what God allowed there with the high priest grandson marrying into the high priest line.

I'm sorry, marrying into the sand ball at the governor's Samaria, because the Samaritans were the number third. The Samaritans at the time of Christ had the first five books, the Torah, and they had that high priest offering offerings. And then one of the things we've missed is the Samaritans were number three on the list. First was the Jews in Jerusalem to hear the Messiah. Second, the lost ten tribes. And then third, the Samaritans, if Christ said, you know, go not to the Gentiles, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, don't go to the Samaritans. And so many of those Samaritans were primed up for when Christ came to become Christians. And when Philip went down there to Samaria, many of those Samaritans became Christians. And that was right away. That's 20 years before they thought anybody could, there wasn't certain sites, could be baptized. And so Peter and John came down there and laid hands on them. So that, even though it was a bad thing to, and Nehemiah drove that grandson away, looks like God used it to fulfill the prophecy because there's one place where it says, David shall never want for a man to sit on the throne. Levi shall never want for a man to offer burnt offerings. And they do. So they do still, they offer burnt offerings there.

I'm done. Okay, very good, very good. Okay, let's go on to verse 15 then. Verse 15.

So we've got the temple, the storerooms, the tizer, and disorder, and then Nehemiah sees what's going on on the Sabbath. And in this section, I know there can be a lot of comments. I want to just kind of go through this section. Let me talk for a while. Let's just look at the words that are actually here in this section and talk about those and see exactly what God recorded here for us in Nehemiah about this. In verse 15, it says, In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

So if we pause there, we have the picture. We have people coming in, and they're actually doing work. They've got people treading wine presses. All those things we would never consider doing that you would never even think would happen in Judah, right? And here we have it. No one can argue this is 100% work of what's coming in here, and they're bringing all these things in. Today, we might say, you know, like you would see, the semi-trucks coming into Kroger or Publix or wherever you shop, just bringing in all the stores, so bringing in all the supplies that people could buy. So we have kind of the farmers market type things going on here. We have on a Sabbath day a full-scale work going on here. So they brought this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, and Nehemiah says, I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. So we had the people coming in, and they were selling all these things, and Nehemiah says, I warned them about them coming in and selling all these provisions. Now, if you look in the Old King James, I know the word victuals is there, and I know that when you look up that word, that Hebrew word that's translated victuals, it can mean a number of things. One of them I saw in one of the write-ups says that it can mean lunch. But when you look and look at what that Hebrew word means, it really is talking about things where you are preparing for something ahead of time. That's why the New King James has the word provisions in there. It was like when you're buying grains and you're buying these things, it's like you when we go to the supermarket. We're buying it to prepare the food for later. We're putting it into our refrigerators. We're putting it into our freezers, into our pantries. We're buying up store things. It's work. We're working like we would the six days of the week that God gave us time to work. And provisions, and where that word lunch comes into, and that strong concordance is, as in you pack lunch. You know, and years past, people would, you go out to work, you pack a lunch. You don't come home for lunch, necessarily, but you pack a lunch in the morning. You get ready. You prepare that lunch for a later time that you're going to eat it.

So you're doing the work ahead of time. You're buying stores, and you're doing something to prepare for later. You're not eating it right then. So the Hebrew word there, you know, when you look at it, and that's why it's provisions. They're buying things to store up in their house to prepare meals later. Not something they were going to eat right that minute. I'm not going to say that they didn't eat a grape when they bought it right there, but they were there doing shopping is basically what it was when you read exactly what's in the words there in verse 15. In verse 16, then, it says, men of Tyre, these are not even, you know, Jews, men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. And then I contended with the nobles of Judah, says in verse 17, and I said to them, What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profiled in the Sabbath day? So when Nehemiah is talking in verse 15 and 16, who he warns were the people that were coming into Jerusalem. What are you doing bringing all this stuff into Jerusalem to sell on the day on the Sabbath day? And why are you bringing in men of Tyre, all this, these fish, and everything else that you're bringing in, and all kinds of goods. It wasn't just food, it was all sorts of things. It's kind of like the Costco of today, or the Walmart of today, or wherever it is that you shop that has not only food, but every other household where that you might want, all in one place that was being brought into Jerusalem, and the people were buying it. But they were allowing those merchants into their gates, into their city. And so Nehemiah goes and contends with the nobles of Judah. You should have known better than this. Why are you allowing this? Just like a Liaship, a Liaship, why were you allowing Tobiah to have a room, the storehouse, and the temple? What were you thinking? Nobles of Judah, why are you doing this? What evil is it that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day? Why would you even allow this to happen in the gates of a city that is committed to keeping God's way? Let me put a map up again of our walls. I don't think I did that right. Hold on.

Just to remind us that we have Jerusalem, we have the wall that's built around Jerusalem, that Nehemiah went back to repair. All the gates that we talked about, those gates entered into the city, and all those gates led into the city. So inside the city of Jerusalem, God's law was to be kept. Everything was to be done exactly His way. And so the people of Jerusalem were allowing the nobles of Judah, as it says in verse 17, were allowing these merchants to come into the gates on the Sabbath day. It's a direct violation of the Sabbath command. Let's go back to Exodus 20. Keep your finger there in Nehemiah. In Exodus 20, in verse 8, and of course it says the same thing in Deuteronomy 20, Exodus 20 verse 8, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Keep it separate. It is separate time. It's God's holy time. It's His holy ground, we might say. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. You, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger, who is within your gates. So for Jerusalem, the city of God, where God's law was to be kept, that Sabbath applied to everything that went on inside the gates of Jerusalem on that day. That was God's territory. The people were committed to God. They were His people, and within those gates, no work was to be done. No work. Today, you know, the cities that we live in, we don't control all that, but we all have our gates. You know, if you have a house, there's property that you own. You control everything that goes on on that property. And so you wouldn't do any work or allow anyone to do any work in your house or on your property that day. Not your son, not your daughter, not your male servant or your female servant, or your lawn company, or your landscaper, or whoever it is, or your pool maintenance guy, or whoever it is that you would have coming in. You wouldn't let him work on the Sabbath day. You wouldn't tell your son, go out and mow the lawn of the Sabbath. Nothing gets done within your gates on the Sabbath day. No work occurs. That would be our property. Not the whole city that we live in, but the property that we have. Similarly, you know, wherever we, you know, like the home office. No work is done in the home office on the Sabbath day. No work, no repairmen come in. No work is happening. No nothing, right? It's within our gates. So when we're talking about the Sabbath day here and there, we're talking about Jerusalem. We're talking within our gates. And that's why Nehemiah, when he sees this, he's thinking, you nobles of Judah, this was your responsibility. Just like, you know, Christian men who are in the church, this is your responsibility in your house, in your gates. These things don't happen. There's the other six days of the week for lawn mowing, and repairs, and shopping, and all those things, and getting the provisions for the next week. That's for the other six days, not the Sabbath. And so we go back to Nehemiah 13, and we look in verse 18. You know, here's Nehemiah. He's talking with the leaders, the leaders of Judah, and he says, didn't your fathers, didn't your fathers do this? Didn't they profane God's Sabbath day? And they went into captivity, and things happened on that Sabbath day. Didn't your fathers do thus? And didn't our God bring all this disaster on us and on the city? They lost the first temple. Israel went into captivity. Judah went into captivity. Mercifully, God allowed people to come back to Judah and rebuild the temple. And Nehemiah and his group to rebuild those walls. He goes, have you forgotten already? This is what we did. We bowed down to idols. We let other people influence us. We looked after their gods and did what they wanted to do, rather than what God wanted us to do. We broke the Sabbath day. We profaned it.

Didn't your fathers do thus? And didn't our God bring all this disaster on us and on the city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath. You can see why he's a little irritated. It's like, what are you thinking? The temple's in disrepair. You've allowed Tobiah in, and here's the Sabbath day. God's holy time. And you are allowing the people from around to come in and just bring their markets in to you to sell their wares. So it was. So he sees this, and he's correcting them. This is not right. This can't be done. So it was at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath. You've got the picture up there, all the gates that are there. As it began to be dark, so before the Sabbath actually began, as sunset was approaching, that I commanded the gates to be shut and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Keep the world out. Keep the world out. Don't open those gates. Don't let the merchants in. Don't let anything in. This is holy time for God. Time for the world to stay away from us and to be out, to be away from the influences of it. So Nehemiah makes this, and he says, I posted some of my servants at the gates so that no, and it's interesting the word burdens is used there, right? No burdens, no work. So I posted, no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day. None of the things that could be a temptation to Judah and the people there, no burdens. And so we have the picture of what was going on. We see Nehemiah come in, talks to the Judas, and he says, you know what? All the gates are locked. All the men of Tyre, all the merchants with all their wares and all the things that they're selling, they can stay. They're not coming in here anymore. They can come in the other six days of the week. They're not coming in on the Sabbath. Now, apparently this has been going on for a while because in verse 20, we see that the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares, they lives outside Jerusalem once or twice. Like, huh, well, this was a major shopping day. I mean, we went in there and really, they're not going to let us in at all. They kind of had to get the message. I guess we're not getting in on the Sabbath day anymore. The doors are closed. They waved. They lives outside Jerusalem once or twice. And Nehemiah says, I warned them and said to them, why do you spend the night around the wall?

If you do so again, I will lay hands on you. You can kind of see, let me stop the share here and keep hearing little buttons here. Okay. You can see Nehemiah getting pretty, pretty upset here.

Go away. We don't want you. We don't want you even by the walls. Just go home. You can come back the other six days of the week. Get all the people. Just go away. And because if you come back again, I will lay hands on you. And they got the message. From that day forward, no more. They didn't come anymore on the Sabbath. Okay. Debbie, you have a comment?

I will go on. If you're saying something, you're... I'm sorry. I forgot to unmute. Okay.

Okay. I'm sorry. Bye. Okay. So, yes. The Sabbath day was being treated as market day. But in Nehemiah 10.31, it says that if the people of the land bring anywhere's or grains to sell on the Sabbath or holy day. Now, holy days don't always fall on the Sabbath. So, we can conclude that that's not a market day, a holy day. I mean, that's just...

that could be just any day of the week. But Nehemiah says, you know, you are not to conduct business on the Sabbath day or a holy day. Correct. So, okay. So, after this 2010, it does say no work. No work. Now, when it talks, no work. And then when it talks and when it speaks in Leviticus 23.7, it says no customary work. So, no work. So, commerce is when you're when you're eating out in the restaurant, you are having commerce because that is the definition, one of the definitions is exchange of goods. So, you're having a nice meal, you're being served, and you're giving money. So, that is commerce. That is business.

But the word... but it doesn't say commerce. It says work. It says work. Well, let's get back to that a little bit. Let's finish up. Let's finish up Nehemiah. You mentioned chapter 10. Let's do read verse 31 in chapter 10 of Nehemiah. And we'll get into some of the things about Pat Debbie here in a few minutes. So, chapter 10 verse 31. This is the chapter, remember, where the people covenant with God, that they're going to do everything that he says. So, verse 31 of that chapter says, if the peoples of the land brought wares or any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we would not buy it from them on the Sabbath. So, they were committed. Okay, if they bring it in, we're not going to buy it from them. We will just resist going to Walmart. We will resist going to Kroger, Publix, Costco, wherever we go. We're not going to the market on the Sabbath day, even if the people bring it into us or on a holy day. So, yes, we don't do any of that on a Sabbath or a holy day. Now, we would forego the seventh year's produce and the exacting of every debt. So, that's talking about the landsabits and things like that. So, they committed to that. Then the Amaya disappears.

People brought in wares and goods and provisions, and then they just kind of violated the covenant that they made because in chapter 13 we see that they are buying. They are buying those. They are out at, they are out at, and how they justify that to themselves. You know, we don't know, but they obviously were doing exactly what they covenanted with God that they wouldn't do. And even remember, they signed that covenant that they wouldn't do it. So, the Amaya comes back. He sees they are doing that. He shuts the gates, okay? The merchants aren't going to be here anymore. The people haven't been able to resist. They haven't been able to resist going out and buying their provisions and everything on the Sabbath day. So, let's go then to, where were we? We're in verse 21. Okay, let's go down to verse 22 here. It says, I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and that they should go and guard the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day. So, we have these verses that are here, and we have this what's going on. I think when we look at that, we see it's interesting that Nehemiah, what he does in talking about all this, where he does is he warns the people that are selling. The people that are selling are working.

They're bringing in their words. They are there to sell. This is a workday for them like anything else. They're bringing in food, goods, and whatever else. The people of Nehemiah, the Jews, shouldn't be buying from them. They said they wouldn't, even if the people came in, but they have allowed workers into their gates. That's where the problem is, and that seems to be where Nehemiah is showing. You've allowed workers into your gates. You are allowing people to come into Jerusalem, and that's a violation of the covenant. Keep your gates closed. Keep the merchandise and the merchandising out of your gates. Their gates are that city, that city wall within Jerusalem. The merchants don't come in there. Our gates today are ours. We wouldn't, you know, as I gave the examples, I wouldn't have a salesman come in to talk to me on Sabbath morning about something that I wanted to buy. That would be done the other six days of the week. I would not let anyone into my gates, into my house, talk about anything that needs to happen, unless it was an emergency that had to happen in order for whatever it would be, hyped spursing or whatever it might be.

So it's our responsibility. Keep that out, and that's where the focus is. When you read the commandments, it's work. I read one commentary that says there is nowhere in the Bible that forbids the payment of money. That's one of the things that people will say, no, nowhere does it forbid it. I don't know that I agree with that, but I only read that in the last day, and I wanted to go back and somehow do a search on that to see if there is anything in the Bible that forbids that. I don't see it in Nehemiah. Nehemiah never tides the people.

They broke the law, but they allowed the merchants in. Let's go over to Matthew 13.

Or is it Matthew 12? Let's look at the Sabbath in Christ time. Make sure you have Matthew 12.

I think I said 13, but it's Matthew 12. You know, in Christ time, the Jews had really put their hands all around the Sabbath day.

I forget what the exact number was. For some reason, the number 690 comes into my mind that they had all these little regulations for the Sabbath day. You couldn't carry more than XX pounds. You couldn't walk more than XX steps. You couldn't do this. You couldn't do that.

It's 13. You had all these regulations that just kind of made the Sabbath like, whoa, what am I doing? You couldn't really enjoy it.

Yeah, Jeremy? The 613 laws are actually picked from all the Old Testament laws. They're actually real laws. They're not made up laws.

They're literally just taken from the verses, and they're the exact laws that are stated in the Bible. No, I don't think you're right on that. I don't think the Bible talks about just exactly how many steps you can take. The Jews added all that. No, I'm talking about something else. The 613 laws that you're thinking of, I actually looked them all up. They're just the 613 laws of the Old Testament, like on your mother and father, stuff like just the exact verses. Okay, so what you're saying is whatever the Jews added in the oral law, the 613 is different than that. Yeah, you're saying the 39 that is for the Sabbath, like the Talmud. Okay, well anyway, whatever the number is, the Jews had added all these regulations to the Sabbath, and it really made it a burden to think what you were going to do. When Christ came, and when he was observing the Sabbath with his disciples, we read over and over in the New Testament about how they would challenge Jesus Christ. You can't do this on the Sabbath. You couldn't do that on the Sabbath. You couldn't... Whoa, what did I do here? I don't want a white board, but we'll worry about that in a minute. You can't do this. You can't do that or anything else. So let's just look at Matthew 12 for a moment and see what Jesus Christ did with the Sabbath day.

It says, at that time, I'm in Matthew 12 verse 1, at that time, Jesus went through the green fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

So they literally were walking together on the Sabbath day. They were fellowshiping with each other. They didn't go to the temple and then just go home to their places. They were there with each other because the Sabbath is a time for us to be together. It's a time for us to hear the Word of God. It's a time to hear the message that God has prepared for us. It's a time for fellowship. It's a time for people to get to know each other. Hebrews 10, 24 and verses 25 says, a time for us to encourage each other, exhort each other, get to know each other, become one with one another. It takes time to do that and to draw in the love that God wants us to have for each other. So they were there, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. Now, when the Pharisees saw that—and you can picture, there's just a breaking a little stalk off, and they were eating it. When the Pharisees saw it, they said, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath. So they nailed them on it, right? That's against our law. You cannot pluck a head. You might be hungry, but just be hungry. You can't pick this grain there on the Sabbath day. And then Christ answered to them, and he had quite an answer for them as they looked at his disciples breaking the Sabbath. He said, haven't you read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him? Now, we could say, really, were they that hungry? Were they, you know, David and his people, they were really hungry when that showbread was eaten. His disciples couldn't have been that hungry. It doesn't say they had been fasting for seven days, and they just saw this grain and couldn't do it. It was part of the enjoyment of the Sabbath, to just, you know, they were hungry. There's the grain, eat it. Look what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him. How he entered the house of God, ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests. Don't you remember that? He said, or haven't you read in the law that the Sabbath, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath. They're blameless. They're doing it for the benefit of the Sabbath, so others can enjoy the Sabbath, just like, you know, we rent halls on the Sabbath back in Christ's day and the Apostles' day. It appears that many of the churches were in homes, but today we can't do that. We rent halls on the Sabbath. We are actually engaging in commerce because we are physically renting those halls for the purpose of that day. We're not writing a check on that day, but we are renting those halls. In some cases, in order to have Holy Days, we have to pay for a janitor to be on site during that day, so we have to have that happening in order to have everyone have a place to be. So there's a number of things we do on the Sabbath, but we have to do it, and including all the physical work. You know, there it is work to set up chairs. It is work to set up the sound systems. It is work that is there. We have potlucks at Sabbath services, and I know when I was a pastor, I would watch the ladies who worked at the potlucks. They were working hard.

That was, you know, people brought the food that would have been prepared ahead of time, but it was work. It was work to set all that up and to put all that out there, and it was all a labor of love. It was the right thing to do. It continues to be the right thing to do. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it, but it's work. But it was there to facilitate the fellowship, the oneness, to build the community, to build the familiarity with each other, and to build the congregation. All those things that are there, and God is okay with that. That has to happen. That is part of there, and not doing that actually does violate what He wants us to do. He does want us to congregate. You know, I don't know if I mentioned Acts 2, verse 42, but when you look at the New Testament church, there were the elements of what a strong, healthy church pattern after what God would want would be. They continued in the Apostles' doctrine, teaching exactly what Jesus Christ taught, teaching from the Bible. They were committed to fellowship. They got to know each other. In fact, they so wanted to be with one another that in those days they just sold everything they had and came to live in the same place. The breaking of bread. They sat down with each other because they enjoyed each other's company, and they needed to get to know each other, and of course, in prayers to God. It's the four signs of a healthy congregation, and the church has the responsibility to facilitate that. We have the responsibility to live in the way God has put us into the congregations and to grow in the body that that He gives us. Christ is saying, here was a thing. David ate the show bread. Look at how much work is done of the Sabbath. It should be done. It's done to God's glory. It's for the purpose that He set apart. Yet, I say to you, verse 6, that in this place there is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You wouldn't have condemned the guiltless, for the Son of Man is Lord over, even over the Sabbath, or even over the Sabbath. So He gives that example there. He doesn't chide the disciples, and they probably knew, and they plucked that grain off, that they were violating some Jewish law someplace. Sure enough, a Pharisee was there to watch what they were doing. But they were there with Christ. They were there together on the Sabbath day. It added to what they were doing as they walked along with Christ and learned what the Sabbath was. In another place, Jesus Christ, I think, is that in Luke 12, I guess, or I think it's in Luke somewhere, that He talks about, you know, if you have an emergency, you know, if your ox falls into the ditch, don't let it perish.

That's an emergency. Get it out of the ditch. And so we might have emergencies, a burst pipe on the Sabbath. That doesn't mean you let your house flood until the sunset the next day. You have to take those things into concern, into consideration, and things like that. So when Jesus Christ, you know, said He is Lord of the Sabbath, and you see constantly, you know, the Pharisee saying, you can't heal. You can't do that good on the Sabbath. Healing on the Sabbath, right? And all the things that they would just watch Him very closely what He was doing. But He was showing this is God's will. This is God's work on the Sabbath that we're doing. We're doing what He has to do. This is His time. And so I see your hand up, Debbie. And I want to do some thinking about this and seeing what God works, you know, what works. And I want people to kind of limit what they say, too. I'm happy to listen to everything and everything. So go ahead, Debbie, and then some others can join in as well. So, OK, so Matthew 12. So, yes, Jesus was actually teaching against all of those rules that the Pharisees had made. And reading first fruits and studying the Bible, we know we don't go by their rules. We know we only go by what God has told us to do, how He told us in which way or how to obey Him. So, yes, Jesus was explaining all this to them so that it would be in the record that, no, we don't go with the Pharisees. We don't go with the Jewish laws and what they have added. So that's what I wanted to say about that. OK, very good. iPad, I don't know your name, but iPad, your hand is up.

I'm sorry, it's me. I don't know why I didn't put my name in this time. It's Tracy. Oh, hey, Tracy.

You said something that seemed to make a distinction just now in that last sentence.

God's work versus man's work. The Sabbath is all about God's work.

The weekday is all about man's work. Is that a bad thing? I have a very hard time with knowing what Sabbath boundaries and things are. And so that seemed to make a clear delineation for me. Andrew? Yeah, thank you. What is on my mind is just all the dos and don'ts on the Sabbath. You know, the original command after God created the Sabbath and made it holy was to remember it.

Remember, He created us and to keep it holy. And what is holy? Holy is the essence of what God is. It's everything He does, thinks, does, all is love, all is fruits. And, you know, if we were thinking in terms of do, how do we make things holy? We wouldn't need 666 rules about what not to do. We'd be busy pursuing holiness. Correct. Hey, Bill?

You're muted, Bill.

I think there were small doors in Jerusalem when the gates were closed and those guys were still lodging outside there. Would there not be like small, the small door? An individual could go out and try to buy stuff? I don't know, actually. I don't know, actually. If someone tried to do that, that would really be thumbing your nose at God, right? So, yeah, if that was the case, that's bad. So, I was just looking at my notes here. I typed some things off and whatever. Actually, where, remember I mentioned the comment about that there's nothing in the Bible that's specifically for bids making a payment for something on the Sabbath. That's actually in our UCG Bible commentary on the Amiah 13. So, that's where that came from. Brother Shabi, doesn't chapter 10 say we will not buy? Chapter 10, 31, say buy. We will not buy, but we will not buy wares. We will not buy our provisions. We will not buy those type things, right? But I'm just quoting.

Next, another question. There are two questions. One, you got the example of the ladies when our Lord had died. They went and got everything prior to the Sabbath, then they arrested the Sabbath. They went and they prepared. And then also, as Brother Bill just pointed out, were the people then able to go out through those gates or the gates were closed where they couldn't go in or out. Each party at the stake. The gates were closed. What Bill was saying, there were little doors that they could go out on their own, right? Not through the big gate, the water gate, the fountain gate, and all those. So, yeah, I don't know if there were other doors. In Hebrews chapter 4, it says, cut the pause. And cut the pause has a sense of entering God's rest. It means let all the winds around you cease. Right. You're like, boom, you don't go out.

You don't let them come in. Yep. Just, you know, think about it. I think the closed doors were only to keep all the merchants. Keep the merchants out. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That was what Nehemiah said. Exactly. Okay. Yes. Hey, Frank. If God had made a dead law about not buying food on the Sabbath, I would have had to been divorced. To have a rule like that would have been so difficult. I mean, when I came to the church, my wife didn't come in, and she didn't like it.

She had a job. So if she got home late after the Sabbath on non-Friday, if we didn't go out to eat, my kids didn't eat. Neither did I. So he either got a divorce or I gotta go out and take her out to dinner. And one other thing should. My wife loved to eat out. And taking her out to dinner on the Sabbath on Friday night, or even at the end of the Sabbath, was a real treat to her.

So I just don't have any problem at all with that. Yeah. And the purpose of the talking, I know that some people do. I'm not looking to change anyone's conscience. I just want to hear all the things. And I want to throw out a couple examples, too, because I know that there are some who just simply will not eat at a restaurant or even in a group meal outside of a home on a Sabbath day.

And I've thought a lot about it over the years. I've prayed a lot about it over the years and things. And again, I have had a number of emails from many of you. I mean, this has been very interesting to read the very many emails. Some saying absolutely not. You should never ever be in a restaurant. Others saying, if I never ate in a restaurant on the Sabbath with people who asked me out, I would never have any fellowship. And you look at that and you think, you know, yes, there is. Yes, we can all say that everyone should prepare ahead of time, have people over to their homes. Some people say that, you know, we should have just a potluck after services every Sabbath. And I know some smaller churches do that. It's not really practicable or practical in a large church with many of the rental situations that we have. But you have to look at, you know, if someone asks you out, and we live in a scattered time. In Jerusalem, they were all there in one place. Here in Cincinnati, many people live very close together. It's different than in many areas. If someone, I don't know, I probably shouldn't even give these examples, but, you know, I wouldn't, Debbie and I don't go out to eat every Sabbath and stuff like that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't feel, I wouldn't feel necessarily that that is the thing to do. She prepares things ahead of time. But if someone asks us to go out with them for on Sabbath to go to a restaurant for additional fellowship, I feel like I would be just, I feel like I would not be doing well. If I said no, because I thought, nope, I can never go to a restaurant. I can never, I can never pay anything on that. I would be, I would be denying the opportunity to have the additional fellowship with them. And I've heard, I've had some widows, you know, write in over the last week since we've been talking about this and making that very comment that they live an hour away from church. They can't, they can't have people come over to their house if the church was ever to say that that you couldn't go out to eat on a restaurant, then they would just be missing some fellowship. They would have to just go home on the Sabbath and unless someone invited them over.

And that, that, again, what would God want? What would God want? He wants the fellowship. Now, I'm trying, I was looking in some, some notes here about, about some things on, you know, we can't control, we can't control the world. It's not our job. People in the church, yes, we, you know, we, we, yeah, I'm missing, missing out my words a little bit, but I mean, when, when we go to a restaurant, we're not making people work, right? I mean, I, I read something and I think it was someone who wrote it in church that we are, we are not, we are not, maybe, maybe here in this, that I read it. We can't control what people in the world do. And if that is, if we're going out there for good, if we're going out there for the opportunity of fellowship, doesn't that further what God wants us to do? You know, I, I will say that in, you know, when my wife, we, we, over the years had, we used to have people over the house a lot, groups of people, and Debbie would work hard, and she would prepare, and she'd spend all the time on it. And I would enjoy having the people over to the house, right? But I would watch her, and I thought, man, she's working the whole time. She's not being able to just sit here and talk with them. She's not doing this, and she had everything done ahead of time, but there was a lot of work on that. Today, if we go out and someone says, hey, you want to go out to dinner with us after Sabbath, we talk. Everyone can sit there, and they can just fellowship and relax. I'm not saying we do that all the time and exclusively, but I just, I kind of want to throw that out there, you know? Jesus Christ talks about, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You know, and I think, I think we need to, what are the weightier matters of the law? What is the real purpose? What's in our hearts when we are doing it? Are we consciously neglecting the law of preparation, or are we really looking at it to, to foster the fellowship and the time with people in the context of God would have us do? I've talked too much, let me be quiet. James Tuttle, let me see. I got to know Bill. I guess you were the next one in line, Bill. You're muted.

Yeah, Bill, you're muted. Okay, there you go. Now, here's the deal. I feel about going out to restaurants. We don't go out every week, but what are we going to do? If the feast, are we going to check out of our motels on the Sabbath and go sleep in the car?

I mean, to me, that seems like it'd be pretty much the same thing. I mean, there's some things you can do. Yeah, I hear you. James? Yeah, I want to go over to Isaiah 58.13 for just a second, and read it from the 5th version that I've got. And it says, if you turn away your foot from traveling unduly on the Sabbath, from doing your own pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath the spiritual delight, the holy day of the Lord, honorable, and honor Him, and yet, not doing your own way or seeking or finding your own pleasure, or speaking your own words. I mean, this comes back to a conscious thing, and it's showing mercy and love. It's not about what you're doing. It's about the actions that you're taking to represent and honor God. I totally agree. Everything we do, God looks at our heart. What is the reason we're doing it? And I agree with you. And what would God do with that Sabbath? Give my hand up there. Hey, Betty. Hi, Mr. Shambi. My question is, if you can go out with church brethren on the Sabbath day occasionally for fellowship, can you do the same thing if you have family members that are scattered a little bit and they want to get together once a month, but everyone gets together on Saturday? Is it all right to go out and fellowship with them after church? Again, Frank kind of went down that road a little bit, right?

If you were to say no to those family members all the time, what would you be telling them about the church? How would they feel about the church? I guess that's the way I would look at it personally. I wouldn't miss church because of it. I would follow God's commands, but we don't want people to think evil of the church either just because we have rules that we've set up. So I'll just put that out. Mr. Shambi, okay, thank you.

Did I say that right? Okay, yeah. Let me go down the line here. Brandon, can you hear me? Yes, hello. Hey, how are you? I'm doing good, sir. How are you?

Yeah, I think it may have kind of been answered as people were talking. But I'll just ask it anyway. So just following in, I guess, in the same vein of going out to eat. So what if, let's just say, for example, I hadn't necessarily gone to the store and somebody said, hey, yeah, I would like you to come over or we'd like to hang out with you at the house. Would that fall into the same vein of, let's say, if I went to Publix and grabbed a box of their fried chicken to bring back to the house? Would that fall under that same fellowship guidelines? Or would that be a little bit different? And I'm just sincerely asking. I don't know. I think you got to look at the situation, right? If they told you a day or two ahead of time that you would have had time to do that on Friday, right?

I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, in the same thing, if like it was on Sabbath and we had, you know, they say, hey, let's get together after service and, you know, we're picking up something on the way home, would that be?

I hadn't necessarily cooked or something like that. I guess if they asked you to bring something, I mean, you could just say, I don't have anything. But if they asked you to, I think if you're just picking it up to go to have fellowship with them, I'd have to let your conscience answer that one. Okay, understood. And that's fine. I mean, you know, granted, I don't, you know, I think it was should be pretty, you know, fairly rare that that would happen.

But I was just asking just in case I went into that type of situation. We had a similar thing when we were in the Philippines, someone asked that. And I think theirs was so that it would be hot, right?

And it's like, well, wait a minute, you that you could have prepared that a day ahead of time, you can you can buy time. And that's, that is consciously not doing something that you could do ahead of time to prepare for the Sabbath. But if it's something that you don't have the best, I look at it the same way. I heard someone once say that they couldn't come to church because they didn't have enough gas in their car. And it wasn't that they couldn't afford to put gas in their car.

But since they had forgotten, I don't remember if they'd forgotten their one, but they didn't didn't do it on Friday. And so they stayed home. And I thought, well, wait a minute, you I think God would be okay if you went and put gas in your car. If you forgot, it would be better to do what God said and be at the command of the assembly, then stay home, at least the way I would look at it. I don't think God would have been upset if if he went and bought it. Right. I agree. I mean, that's a necessity to follow his commands.

And yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, I'll be in the same vein as you and, you know, not be like, obviously, if you didn't put it in on purpose and then said, Oh, I got it. And then that's, you know, a different story. But yeah, that's I agree. Okay, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Okay. Tracy, are you next there? I think that might be you again. Yes, me again. I'm sorry. I'm in a nursing home. We know. And during the week, I go to the cafeteria. So because the meals here, and then at least I can order what I want.

If I go to the cafeteria, lunch, having the time I get up for my two hours a day, I'm not allowed up anymore than that. My question is, being the Sabbath day, would it be more prudent to stay in my room that day and keep my own little Sabbath sanctuary? Or is it neither here nor there? If I go out the cafeteria, I have my lunch. Well, yeah. I mean, you had the option of having food in your room. Is that what you're saying? Oh, I do. Yes, it comes to my room. Breakfast and dinner comes to my room anyway.

So I definitely had an option in my room. Yeah. I don't know. I hate to be answering questions like I'm the expert on this stuff and whatever. I think you got to kind of look at your, I think some of those those answers have to come from you, you know, and what you've what you feel about, what you feel about it.

Either way, you're not you're not working. You have to as part of the Sabbath. God didn't create the Sabbath to be a fast day. So right. Okay, I was just wondering, it seems like a lot of these questions are based on, yeah, God gives us enough information to work our brains on these things a bit. You know, some of these questions we have, you can ask God too, right? Just say, how should I handle this? And you'll feel your conscience. You'll know if you're doing something.

And if you feel guilty about it, don't do it, right? Don't do it. Follow your heart is what you need to do. Don't let anything I've said tonight or whatever. I'm not looking to change anyone's conscience. I want you to continue doing what you're doing. Just do it, but do it for God and do it for the right reasons. Hey, Sheldon, how are you tonight? Hey, everyone. I'm doing well, thanks. I think throughout this, and I mean, some of us have had to discuss this, think about this, study this for a long time.

Mr. Shabe, as you said, you have. There are two things, I think, that are the issues. One is work and one is commerce. And I think Christ proved to us that you can do enough work to feed yourself. And that's what he was doing, was enough work to feed himself for the day. He wasn't harvesting for the whole year. He was doing enough work to feed himself for that day. And with commerce, if we, you know, each of us, if we feel that way about it, about the commerce side, then we should also make sure that we do not, we turn off our electricity, our gas, our water on the Sabbath, because we are paying people to keep the electricity on.

There are people who work all day Saturday to make sure our electricity is on. If we feel this way, then we should make sure that we're not participating in that. I mean, I don't think we would say we could go to a restaurant on Saturday and then tell them we'll come back on Sunday to pay, because that wouldn't be the spirit of the law. And I think we have, you know, we all engage in things in our society, the way our society works. We, like you said, we rent halls, we pay for electricity, we pay services that are on Saturday where people are working. I think there's a bigger issue I wanted to just bring up and mention on this, and that is, or not a bigger issue, but a related issue, and that is it's the meat offer to idols topic.

And I think we should be careful as a family, because Sabbath is family day. That's essentially what it is. We spend time with our father. We are the children, and he says, can you please take a day aside to spend with me and focus on me? And so it is about family.

And as a family, I think we have to be careful to do two things. One is not judge one another if we have different opinions on this. So we should make sure that we're not judging our brothers and sisters, and allowing them to have their opinion, and not judging one another. So the second thing is, we should not encourage anyone to go against their conscience.

So if I feel it's okay to eat out on the Sabbath, and someone else who is my brother or sister does not, I should not try to convince them to go against their conscience. That means I'm trying to convince them to sin, and that is a very heavy weight on me. God says, I am the one who is guilty in that case. So we should be careful to do two things.

Not judge one another, except that one another have different opinions and still love. And the other thing is not try to convince anyone to go against their conscience. Very good. Well said. Well said. Becky. I don't think I'm gonna go. Becky, you disappeared.

Okay, let me see. I guess we'll have Day Permar.

I'm sorry. Hold on.

I'm sorry. It wasn't working. It was me. I was muted. I made a comment before about how the Israelites, when they first started to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in the Book of Nehemiah, and how I'm sure that God blessed them. He showed them they were doing the right thing. And I think that this is really no different if we're close enough to him, and it's something that we are doing, or it's on our conscience, and we take it to him. He knows the answer.

All we have to do is ask him and pay attention to how he treats the situation, because I feel like if it's something he doesn't want us to do, he will show us. He'll discipline us, because he disciplines those that he loves. So if he's showing us that this is wrong, then I think we'll know, and our heart. And if not, I think he'll bless it, and he'll let us know, hey, your intentions are right, you're not in the wrong environment, I'm okay with this, this is what I want. I think he ultimately is where we should go for the answer. I'm sure others agree.

Well, I think we all agree. We all agree with you very good. Let me see. Dave, did you want to say something? Yes, sir. Yeah, I was going to say that I know we've heard a lot of Barry's opinions tonight, and a lot of food for thought, and all of that. One other aspect I'd like to bring up is, whatever our opinion is, we need to make sure we don't let Satan win on this, because he will try to use this as a wedge. Right now, the church needs to be united, and we need to focus on unity, and doing the work, and preaching the gospel, and he will use anything he can to drive a wedge between brethren. So, going back to what Sheldon said about respecting each other's conscience, I agree with that completely. Also, just to make sure that we're not letting Satan use something like this to try to drive a wedge between brethren. Yeah, it is very much a 1 Corinthians 8 issue, right? Like the meat being sacrificed to idols, and Paul said, hey, I'll never eat meat again if it's going to offend my brethren. We have to watch that we don't offend each other, and we can do that in either situation, right? Either situation, but it doesn't divide us. We look to see what God will want to do if we go according to our hearts. Okay, Betty, did you have another comment you want to make?

Betty, you're muted if you're talking.

I'm sorry. Okay. Nope, you just muted yourself again. Just say hello. Okay.

Bill? Yeah, just quickly, Leviticus, for the holy days, it says, do no servile work, but on atonement, it says, do no work. I'm done. Yep. Okay. And Debbie.

Okay, yeah, so this in this platform, this Bible study we're having right now.

Okay, so we are just having a discussion back and forth on Nehemiah 13 and everything that surrounds that. And in Colossians 3 and Romans 15, Paul says that we are to admonish one another, you know, discuss what's in our within our group and everything. So there's nothing wrong with that.

We are not to judge, and it is a one-on-one with God. Our relationship is a one-on-one with God.

However, we can discuss these things because I always kind of felt guilty about eating out on the Sabbath until actually an elder in the Church of God mentioned that he and his life did not. And so then I started looking into it. But I wanted to mention that, first of all, we should not ever use conscience. It is not our conscience. God doesn't give us the right to use our conscience whether we obey him or not. It is in his Word. And Isaiah 58.13 clearly shows, James brought out, but it clearly shows how to worship God about not doing your own pleasure, not doing your own, speaking your own words. And when we go out to eat, I don't think we always keep the Sabbath like we're supposed to. And also on putting gas in your car. Don't you think that's in the front to God, that if we know the Sabbath is coming up, we have Thursday, we have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we can gas up our car. Are we breaking the Sabbath to keep the Sabbath? Are we being lazy? Are we not thinking about God's Sabbath as it being so holy that we don't think, oh, I have got to get everything lined up before the Sabbath so I can keep it holy. So I just think we're kind of being relaxed with God's Sabbath. And one last thing, this is an extreme example.

So if you are having people over and you had a repairman over Friday afternoon, he stayed late, so you did not have time to go to the store and get anything to eat. So then early the next morning or that night, you go to Publix, you go to Delhi, they have prepared food, you buy food.

Oh, well, let's see, I'm going to get some cake and cookies because we don't need a dessert. Well, I have to buy some else because we need some else. Oh, wow, these blueberries are on sale. I think I'll grab those. Where do we stop? This is a slippery slope. We cannot let ourselves do that.

I agree with you and I want to just make sure we're clear on things. I agree with you. That would be the danger of going into a store to pick up some. I would just need this one thing and then your eye catches on something else and all of a sudden you're shopping, right? I would agree with you on that. So I mean, stay out of the store. The gas example, you are exactly right. If someone's like, eh, I don't feel like going out on Friday, I don't have any gas and boom, boom, boom, and then you fill up on the Sabbath. Yes, it is a preparation day. The sample I gave, it was like the person said, I forgot. I forgot there was no gas in the car and boom, boom, boom. And again, it wasn't that they didn't have money. So if you legitimately forget it, God knows what's in our heart, right? Then if we're doing it to kind of like, eh, I just don't feel like doing that on Friday, then that's a problem and then staying home. So I want to make clear that. What's in our heart?

What are we doing, right? What are we doing and why? And to make sure we're right with God. Hey, Sheldon. All right, I just wanted to add one more thing. I think God must be very proud right now of the fact that there are several hundred people here who care enough about his Sabbath that we are going through this and trying to understand it. We're actually trying to learn and trying to grow. If we didn't care about the Sabbath, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So I think that's a beautiful thing. Yep. And you know, and Debbie mentioned that as well. Yes, it is really good that we can talk about these things. No one is trying to convince.

When you talk about conscience, it's our conscience, the Holy Spirit leading us, right? We know when we sin against God. We feel guilty and whatever. So that's what we're talking about in our conscience as the Holy Spirit leads us. And we don't judge each other. We'll, you know, God will lead us and we still love each other and get along with each other and work with each other and bond together. So, Jim Peterson has had his hand waving up for quite a little while now. Really?

I don't see his hand. Not the hand for the Zoom hand, but his actual real hand. Oh, I see. I see his hand waving now. Okay, Jim, Reggie, we'll get to you next. Jim, go ahead. Sorry, I don't know how to paint my hand yellow. Okay. So anyway, I just wanted to touch back to where you were talking about when Christ walked through the Greenfield. That was on the second Sabbath after the first, where a very special ceremony was taking place in the Greenfield and with the tying off of the three bundles of barley. And so when the disciples accused him of breaking the Sabbath, it was breaking a ceremonial law. And he said to them very curtly, and that's, by the way, why he appealed to David example, because that was also a ceremonial breach. Because, and so he said to him, he says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Very, very important thing. You can contaminate the Sabbath by being too rigid, and you can drive people away. Children have been driven away. I have four daughters in the church. And I tried, I learned that lesson way, way early, by being too harsh. The Sabbath is meant to sing and to dance and to rejoice. It is a time to go and listen to good messages and to fellowship. I bought a book off a guy by the name of Dr. Samuel Bakiyaki, and he showed me his gold medal and invited him out for supper. He couldn't go because he made his sandwiches the Friday before. And I thought about that and said, you know, like, what about Paul, who gave the Corinthians a scathing rebuke about their fellowship dinners?

And he said, this is not a godly supper you're eating. Those suppers that they were eating were Sabbath suppers. It was a time, that's what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be getting together as a family, as a church family, and as an extended family. And it all comes from the heart. The Sabbath was made for man. Don't turn it around and worship the Sabbath.

So, very good. Reggie?

Hey, Mr. Shaby. How long has that mentioned an example about whenever my mother died?

You know, you know, my hometown's in Blackshire and you served that area, church. Very same bird and different ones that live up there. Anyway, I have two sisters and they won't have the 10 on Sabbath. Of course, they know my Sabbath and everything. My sisters do. Anyway, in my heart, I said, I'm not sure if I'm going to go to the back. You're fading out a little bit on us, Reggie.

Okay, let me turn my computer around. Can you hear me now? Yes. Did you hear what I said before? I heard about the sisters. Yes, they wanted to have a meal and everything in my mother's home church area. And so, in conscience, I didn't want to miss that meal. And so, I didn't come to services. I served there in Jacksonville in the morning. So, I just logged onto the webcast and listened to that.

Then I went to that reception that my mother's church gave to our family.

It didn't bother me one bit. That's what I did. Okay. Very good. Okay.

Betty?

Nope. Okay. Aloosh again.

Thank you, Mr. Shaby. Thank you very much. I believe we are having this conversation because we love God. We love God's law. We like to live our lives according to the laws of God. And that's why we are having this conversation. Now, you said something earlier. It is not possible for us to change what people do on the service. We have this world is full of many people that are not keepers like us. So, we cannot stop people from opening their stores on the service. But whatever we do, whatever activities we do on the service, I think it's important we ask ourselves some basic questions. Questions like, what I do on the service doesn't glorify God. Is it born out of my love for God? Am I doing this because I'm putting God first? I think when we put God first in all of this, then it is our motive, the motive, what's in our hearts that really matters. And we should not judge one another. We should accept one another because God is with us when we put Him first in all we do. That's what I have to say about that.

Very good. And you are right. Are we doing God's will? Are we doing what God would want? And remember that He wants us to become one, right? We have to learn. We have to become one with one another. And it isn't all about eating out on the Sabbath, right? It's about becoming one and with Him and each other doing His will. Okay. Okay. I see. Do I see a hand down here?

Karen, go ahead. Yes, Mr. Shaby, I just have a comment as far as preparing ahead of time for like potlucks and that. I don't know how many times I went to a church for quite a while that had a lot of potlucks. And it was very obvious from the way the women talked behind the scenes that they had to work really hard ahead of time. And a lot of them, it's a different society now, as far as being able to necessarily, so many of them work and they can't end up making things necessarily on the Friday night. And so I'm just saying is that I think that there's a big difference in the way our society is now, that it's not a matter, I mean, how many people in the church would not end up making a hamburger on the Sabbath? Or, you know, in other words, a small dinner, they're still cooking and they're doing. If you can prepare and you can do things ahead of time, great. But there's a lot of people that literally can't. And it does become a lot of work for the people. And I do want to apologize for not raising my... this is all I could do is because my cell phone doesn't end up having a hand to be able to raise. Okay, yeah. And you know, and I should reference that. If you do have your hand raised and you don't know how to raise your hand, the little yellow hand, just start talking. We'll be okay that way. I did! I did! Oh, you know what? I think I muted you, actually. But I think I did. So sorry about that. Just say, just say, excuse me. I really do think, though, that in our society today, when you're talking about preparation, it's not like it used to be in those days where it was a big work type thing, necessarily to end up heating that being able to make something in the stove great, being able to end up having things ahead of time is great when you can. But when you can't, to be able to end up throwing a steak in the broiler, I wouldn't think that that, I mean, that can end up being a really good Sabbath meal for people. But it's still going to end up being work, but not at all the work. It would have been in the times of biblical times. It is good. I don't, I mean, there is a preparation day, and I think we have gotten away from preparation day. We should be thinking about the Sabbath before the Sabbath gets there. Are our clothes in order? Do we have what we need to keep the Sabbath right and all those things? There is the concept of the Sabbath is set apart, we prepare ahead of it. So I don't want to minimize that either by any of this.

I'm just thinking in terms of there's that, like in the winter or whatever it may be, that when the women are working, it's a different society where the women, a lot of the women, do end up working. They're not home to be able to prepare things before the Sabbath.

So, that's all. I just wanted to add that. Okay, sounds good. I'll loose again. Did you have another comment or is your hands still up from before?

Before we close, I just want to make use of this opportunity to appreciate the Home Office and the Good Works program for the financial support, even to the breadboard in Nigeria. So I want to say that we got your financial support and we are so grateful. We are so glad. We are happy that you are one with us in our current difficult. Very good. You tell everyone hi down there. It was great that that was able to happen. So I'm glad it got down there. Hi, I just want to comment that I found this church's study paper very helpful, in-depth, and interesting. I don't want to comment on it, but just say that I just think it's a very excellent resource. It was very well done. Yeah. That was for Shaby. Hey, Paul. Yeah, I don't have a hand tonight. I don't know why. I was just curious if the fact that God calls to Sabbath one of His feast days comes into play here. What do we do at the Feast of Tabernacles on the Holy Days and all the Holy Days? Just a thought. Yeah. I mean, the Sabbath, I mean, it is for fellowship, too. It's the one. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Good point. I think I saw another yellow box somewhere. Let me... Anyone else? Have we exhausted it? Hello. Hey, Rita. Hi there. Sorry. I don't know where my hand is tonight, either. I can't find it. I just wanted to address the fact about women who work on Fridays. I did that before I had children, and I'm back in that situation again now that my children are older. Thursday evening is my preparation day, and sometimes I even do that when I don't work on a Friday because I don't want to cook two meals on Friday. So I would rather do things on Thursday, have that preparation done for the Sabbath.

I don't use my working on Friday as an excuse not to prepare for the Sabbath because I really do enjoy a relaxing day after I come home from services, and we can just throw something in the oven that I prepared on Thursday. And I get the whole family to help clean up. My husband has been very supportive of helping prepare for the Sabbath as well, so I just want to say that those of us that can't do it on Friday, then we just have to do it throughout the week. Yeah, very good.

I'm glad you made that comment. There is a way to do that, and your whole family's participating in it, and the Sabbath is a delight to you, and yeah, you're preparing ahead of it, again, making it special the way it should be. Very good. Thank you. That's it. Thank you.

Anything else, anyone? Any lingering thoughts? I think it's very good that we've had this conversation. I appreciate everyone. We have our thoughts, and again, I hope no one is offended or anything like that. We have different thoughts. The Bible of God does give us these areas that we work with Him in. We seek His will. We do His will, but we follow Him the way that He leads us to. But we all, as I think Dave mentioned, none of this should ever separate us. We are all one family. We know who God is. We know who His law is, and we know what His plan is, and we're dedicated to becoming like Him. He will lead us into all the things that He wants us to learn.

Anything else? We went a little longer today. Actually, we didn't finish Nehemiah.

We'll start Ezekiel the next time. The last part of Nehemiah is another one where we'll run through at the beginning of that. Next week, we're not going to have a Bible study because we're in Phoenix for one of the pastoral conferences, so we don't get home until Wednesday evening. We won't get home in time for the seven o'clock study, so we will have it two weeks from tonight. We'll finish up the few verses of Nehemiah just so we did that. Any questions or lingering comments from this study we could talk about then? But then we will begin the book of Ezekiel, which is such a book for our time as well. The prophecies that are in there speak directly to our time.

Chapter one in Ezekiel is just a very inspiring chapter.

Anything else at all tonight? Anyone?

Thank you all for a very lively and a very enjoyable Bible study. We have a very good rest of the week in Sabbath, and we will see you on this Bible study two weeks from tonight. Okay, just one more. Thank you.

Good night. Good night, everybody.

Bye, guys. Good night, everybody. This is Rosalie Borg.

Okay, good night.