Holy Ground, Part 2

Well, last week, you will recall, we talked about what God taught Israel, or retaught Israel, as they were coming out of Egypt. And we live in a time that's not so dissimilar to the time that ancient Israel came out of Egypt. They knew who God was. They knew some of what His laws were, even after having been hundreds of years in Egypt. But as God brought them out of Egypt, they needed to be retrained and re-educated in how it is that we worship God, what it is that He wants us to do.

So you remember that we went the first time that God spoke, if you will, to Moses, was back in Exodus 3. And Moses saw the burning bush. Moses approached the burning bush, and God told him, Moses, take your shoes off. This is holy ground. And we talked about that's the first time the Bible, the word holy, shows up. God was teaching Moses, what does it mean when something is holy? Moses then would teach it to the children of Israel. And we went through a number of things then, as the first time that it was mentioned in the Bible, we went from holy, and these are the things pertaining to God.

So whenever we see the word holy, we know this is something that pertains to God. We need to pay close attention to it. If we are people who are looking to please God and do His will, we need to pay attention to everything that God says. But when He says it's holy, it's holy. The next time that we saw the word holy in the Bible, it had to do with holy convocations, such as where you and I are here today. God lists the holy convocations.

They are convocations of His. And we went to Leviticus 23, listed where all those holy convocations are, when they're scheduled. And so we have 52 Sabbaths of the year that God says holy convocations. We have seven holy days, holy convocations. It includes Passover in there on a holy convocation when you read through Leviticus 23, times when God wants His people, clearly that He wants His people to come together before Him in a holy congregation, a time that's dedicated to Him, His holy ground, per se.

So when you and I are here today at this holy congregation that God has called, we are, or I said congregation, holy convocation that God has called us to, we are here on His ground. We are here on His time to do what He wants us to.

From there, we saw that the third time holy is mentioned in the Bible, it has to do with the holy Sabbath. And that's the day that we're in, this 24-hour period that we're in today. It is holy time. The whole 24-hour period is time that is reserved for God. Holy ground, if you will, that's the time that we do what God's will is. This is time dedicated to Him and not what we want to do, as in the things that we do the other six days of week, but time that we reserve for God to do the things that He would have us do on the Sabbath day.

He tells us He wants the Sabbath to be a delight to us. And that's a challenge, and we do learn through our lives how to observe the Sabbath. And we talked some words about some words that are in the 10th, in the 10 Commandments there. When we looked at the Sabbath commandment, we looked at words like rest, and what does that mean, so that people don't get confused over what rest means. And when we say when God rested, and we look at the Hebrew word back in Genesis and other places in Exodus where before He even issued the 10 Commandments, He talked about resting on the Sabbath day.

It simply means to cease from the work that you do the other six days of the week. Yes, the Sabbath day is supposed to be a time of quiet, a time of repose, a time that we can be refreshed. God never intended it to be a 24-hour nap. He intended things to be done on the Sabbath, and we have to be sure that we are doing what God wants us to do on the Sabbath.

One of the things that He says in Leviticus 23, verse 3, is there is a holy convocation on every Sabbath. That alone tells us if we're going to keep the Sabbath the way God wants us to, we don't just sit at home and sleep all day. If we're tired, we come to God's holy convocation as long as we're not sick or have any other pertinent reason that we can't be here.

From there we talked about keeping the Sabbath, and we talked about how the modern translations will even talk about putting a hedge around the Sabbath. It's a 24-hour protected time. You guard the Sabbath. This is precious time that we have to be with God. He created the Sabbath on the seventh day, the pinnacle of what His creation was. On the sixth day He created man. On the seventh day He created the Sabbath.

On that very first day that mankind was alive, He was with God. On the Sabbath day, it's a joy and a blessing to be here on this day with God. We talked about another word, too.

If you recall last week as we ended, we talked about the word test and how God showed in the Bible that the Sabbath day is a test day. If you remember in Exodus 16, as Israel was out in the wilderness and they were hungry, and of course they were complaining and there was no food around, as you can imagine, in the desert setting, and God said, I'll give you manna.

I'll give you manna from heaven. Every day it's going to be there. Five days you're going to go out and you're going to gather exactly what you need. Six days you're going to gather twice what you need.

On the seventh day there will be nothing there for you. Don't even go out to look for manna. It's not going to be there. So God clearly was teaching them about the seventh day. And we may as well just turn back there to Exodus 16 because that'll lead right into where I'm going to start today. In Exodus 16 and verse 4, God is telling Israel, I'm going to rain bread down from heaven for you and the people will go out and gather a certain quota every day.

Why did God give that commandment? Why was he teaching them about the sabbath day right after they left Egypt and even before they were at Mount Sinai and God gave the Ten Commandments? Why? That I may test them. And so the sabbath day is a test day. God looks and sees how do we keep his sabbath holy, sacred, distinct from the rest of our week because there is a distinction when you look at the word holy. How do we keep the sabbath? God says, I will give you the sabbath day to test you because how we keep the sabbath is a good indicator to God of how important he is to us and how important his will for us is.

So he says that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. So as we talk about what God was teaching Israel as they came out of Egypt, and as we look at the situation that we're in today, having come through the days of Unleavened Bread, having come through a period of two years of COVID where we had things happen and that we never saw coming, services had to be canceled, we all had to stay home by order, things that kind of took everyone by surprise because you never saw this coming.

As we come out of that time where now we are free to gather again today without any kind of government intervention or any kind of government edicts or whatever, it's time for us, just like it's time for Israel, to go back and look at the detail of what God wants us to do over and over in the Bible. It talks about diligently obeying God, carefully obeying God. He is a God of detail.

All you have to do is look through the Book of Exodus to see how much detail He gave Israel in building that tabernacle to know how much detail He gives us as we build our individual temples, spiritual temples, and our collective spiritual temple.

He gives us the clear directives. It's up to us. He'll see, will we walk in His way or won't we? Would Israel really come out of Egypt and completely turn to God, or would they not? It's the same question He has for all of us as well. So today, one more word and a couple more things, and we'll get into a little bit of what we can do on the Sabbath. Often times we'll talk about the things we shouldn't be doing on the Sabbath, but rarely we talk about the things we can do on the Sabbath.

Certainly, holy convocations are one of the things that God commands, so we're here. But there are other ways to have the Sabbath. God does say He wants this day to be a delight to us, not something that we're just sitting at home waiting for the clock to strike sunset and we can go out and do whatever it is we want again. That was never the purpose of the Sabbath day that it was supposed to be, any kind of problem or burden on people.

God said, if you're keeping the Sabbath day correctly, if you're looking at my way and what my will for you is, then it will be a delight. You will not be thrilled when the sun goes down on Saturday evening. So let's look at another word in the progression of what God was teaching Israel, and God teaches us about things that are holy, special, distinct, sacred to Him. The next word that we can find associated with Sabbath, let's go to Exodus 31. 31 and in verse 13, God speaks to Moses, God tells Moses, you speak to the children of Israel saying, surely my Sabbath you shall keep.

There's a word we've looked at. Surely my Sabbath you shall keep. For it is a sign between you and me throughout your generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you or sets you apart. Sanctifies you just like He sanctified the Sabbath day and called it holy just like He sanctifies us by His truth, calls us a holy people, a special treasure to Him. It is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

You shall keep the Sabbath therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes this shall surely be put to death for whoever does any work on it, that person will be cut off from among his people.

Well, God shows just how important this time is and how important it should be to us. So it's a sign.

Above all those other words we talked about as we're progressing, now God shows Israel this day is going to be a sign between you and me. And last week we talked about the rule of first mention. Remember that? We go back and the first time a word is used in the Bible gives a good indication of what God means by that word. We have an English translation, but the original Old Testament was in Hebrew, the Old, original New Testament was in Greek. And when we go back and we see the first time a word is used, it kind of gives us a meaning of what God would say. The first time then that this word sign occurs in the Bible is in Genesis 1, and that's in verse 14. Now this has to do with the holy days, the holy convocations as well in Genesis 1, 14. It says in verse 14, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years. And we know the work of seasons there, the Hebrew word is moed. It's appointed times, moed. The word moed is all over Leviticus 23. And so God set these great lights in the sign in the heavens for us to be able to separate day from night. One day is this period of time and to identify when these holy days and these holy convocations would occur, because they would be signs between him. His people would be paying attention to those times and looking at what he created during that time. If we move forward the second time, sign, this Hebrew word is in Genesis 4 and verse 15.

Now this is, you know, at this time Cain, Cain has killed Abel. Cain has committed an atrocious crime and God is going to put a sign on him. Verse 15, chapter 4, The Lord said to him, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold, and the eternal set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him. So a sign is an identifying characteristic.

It can be a banner. It can be any kind of an identifier or a distinguishing mark that God would put on someone. We've already talked about how the Sabbath day is distinct from all the other days of the week. Convocations that we come to on holy days are distinct from other convocations that we may go by. Next time we see the sign come up is in Genesis 9.

After the flood, God puts a sign, a sign in the heavens that he will no longer flood the earth in Genesis 9, in verse 12. God said this is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you, every living creature that is within you for perpetual generations. I set my rainbow in the cloud and it will be for the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. You can count on it. Every time you see that rainbow, that's a sign. That's an identifying sign that God says no longer. Not again will I flood the earth in chapter 17. Now we're not going to go through every one of them here, but just so we get the sense of what the sign is, that it's an identifying mark, a distinguishing mark, that God uses that word to set that apart. Genesis 17 in verse 11. Well, I'll pick it up in verse 10 here at the beginning of the sentence. Genesis 17. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins. It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. And so down through the ages, we see that the people of God, the Jews, you know, down through the ages, the circumcision was a sign.

We are God's people. This is a sign of the covenant. Now that was the old covenant. Today there's a different sign of the covenant. It's no longer physical circumcision, do we know, but the circumcision of the heart, as it says in Romans 2, 28. But you can see the sense of the word that God is using when he uses the word sign. So when he tells Israel, the Sabbath is going to be a sign between you and me. People will know who my people are by the Sabbath.

And everything that the Bible tells us about the Sabbath. And we've talked about many, many words already that have to do with the Sabbath. You know, the Sabbath, some people argue, when Jesus Christ died, the Sabbath was done away. And yet you cannot read through the New Testament and find any indication ever that any apostle of Christ, any follower of Jesus Christ, certainly not Jesus Christ himself, even after he was resurrected and had plenty of opportunity to set an example that no longer the Sabbath, to tell the apostles no longer the Sabbath, but another day. You cannot read the Bible with an honest eye and not know that the Sabbath is binding. It was set in motion at creation and that it continues to exist today. Example after example after example after example in the New Testament, the Sabbath still exists. It is still a sign between God and his people. Now, we're going to talk about the things that God wants us to do. In fact, I'm not going to even turn to a couple of scriptures here. You can turn to, or write down Isaiah 66 verse 23. And as you read through the book of Isaiah, when you come to the latter chapters, you can see clearly that it's talking about the time, the time that fulfills, that is the fulfillment of the fall Holy Days, right? We have the war and the return of Jesus Christ. We have the white throne judgment period. And God says in the concluding verses of Isaiah 66, clearly future time, nothing to do with present or Old Testament at all. From one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, they will honor me. So the Sabbath will be in existence as long as there are physical people and a physical earth, there will be the Sabbath. And our job is to understand it and to keep it the way that God wants it to, because it's an identifying sign, along with all those other words that we talked about. In fact, if we go back to Exodus 31, where we were, we read verse 13.

And often when God is really, really, really making the point, probably understanding we need to hear something two and three and four times before we really get it that, oh, oh, you really mean that, right, God? So he tells us in verse 13 that the Sabbath is a sign, but he goes back down. He talks about keeping the Sabbath, what shouldn't be done, that is a time for God set aside from all the other days of the week. In verse 17, verse 16, he says, therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. Now, perpetual covenant there is the Hebrew word olam, O-L-A-M. It literally, as you look through it and you use the word, you can see when it's talking about a specific period of time, usually it means eternity. Some of the dictionaries of the Old Testament will say that olam most often means as long as there is a heaven and earth. So it's a perpetual covenant, not just for ancient Israel, not just until Jesus Christ returned. Jesus Christ kept it. People will see this in a little bit after him kept it as well. Throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant, it is a sign, verse 17, it is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.

Not just a short period of time, not just until you come to the promised land, ancient Israel. It's a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the seventh day he ceased from his work and was refreshed. And so we have the sign.

Now God is serious when he tells us there's a sign between him and his people, and they profane the Sabbath, neglect the Sabbath, don't keep it the way, don't pass the test that he's given them and you and I as well. Will they keep the Sabbath or not? Will they do what I say or not? The Sabbath, here's what I tell them to do. Let's see what happens. We see that ancient Israel simply did not. If we look back in the book of Ezekiel, we see ancient Israel and we know that they went into captivity and God makes it very clear why they lost the land that they did and the promised land that he led them to. In Exodus 20, we see in verse 3 that Ezekiel here is addressing Israel. God says, speak to Israel. Israel was already in captivity at this time, so we know this is for a future generation upon whom the ends of the ages have come, that we can see how God judged Israel and what they did. So we look at verse 3, we come down through chapter 20, that says the word, that talks about the Sabbath over and over and over again. In verse 12, God says, moreover, I gave them, I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between them and me, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. That sets them apart. That distinguishes them. That they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. Yet the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They didn't walk in my statutes. They despised my judgments, which if a man does, he'll live by them, and they greatly defiled my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my fury on them in the wilderness to consume them.

And eventually, he says for he didn't do that in the wilderness, but they persisted in their neglect of what God's will was, and they eventually lost their inheritance, if you will, and they went into captivity. Verse 19, he says, I am the Lord your God. Walk in my statutes. Keep my judgments and do them. Hallo, that's Strong's number 6942, that keep them holy. Right? Hallo is something just like we hallow God's name. Hallo my Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. He comes down through the chapter. We see that he dispersed them. He dispersed Israel throughout all the lands, and then at the end of the chapter, he talks about bringing them back again. Let's drop down to verse 40. We can see this is a time that hasn't occurred yet. Time to yet be fulfilled with Christ returns and returns Israel to the land that was originally set aside for them. In verse 40, let's pick it up in verse 39. As for you, O house of Israel, no, no, no, let's pick it up in verse 40. For on my holy mountain, on the mountain height of Israel, says the Lord God, there all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, shall serve me. There I will accept them, and there I will require your offerings and the first fruits of your sacrifices, together with all your holy things, the things that are reserved for God, I will accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will be hallowed. Then you will honor me. Then you will look at me. Then you will keep the things of my holy. Then you will know that I am the Lord. When I bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for which I raised my hand in an oath to give your fathers. And 43, 43 is just one of those verses that you look at, and you can imagine what this country and other nations that have had God's blessing that literally are throwing it away by the decisions they make, the judgments they make, the laws they pass, the way they change when they change even natural laws and pervert them in ways that only Satan's mind could conceive of. In verse 43 it says, and there you'll remember your ways. You'll remember what you did that led to this and all your doings with which you were defiled. And you will loathe yourselves in your sight because of all the evils that you have committed. Now that'll be a trying time for the peoples of Israel. Hopefully not a trying time for any of the people of God in His church because we should know better. For the people of God in the church, you don't pay attention to what God's laws are and are diligently, carefully striving to obey them and determine what God's will is. There will be a time of weeping and gnashing of teeth that precedes that.

None of us want to be in that. God has called us for something far different and encouraged us and gives us all the tools to pay attention now and to get ready. Now is the time.

As I look at the time that we're coming out of and we look at what the situation in the world is, and it's like a week goes by, not even a week goes by, that there isn't some major news story. I mean, this week it was the Roe v. Wade. If anyone had told me that a week or two ago that Roe v. Wade would ever be overturned in our lifetime, I would have thought, yeah, but here it happened. Who knows what the effect of that is going to be as the two factions face off against each other. Who knows where that is going? You know, last night I was watching the 630 News on one of the networks, and the lead story was something that I thought, where did that come from? Something out of Washington, out of the White House, I guess, or the CDC, that said, be prepared. This fall, they're expecting another round of COVID and up to 100 million people this time could be infected with COVID. That was what they said at that time. So, you know, who knows if that's true or not? But it does indicate that there is, you know, something that is there. The Bible talks about disaster upon disaster. So it's time for us to be ready and to be looking at what it is that God would have us be and what God would have us do and become the people that He wants us to become so that we become the children of God and are able to live over into the kingdom. So it's important that we look at these things and do these things. Now, let's go back to Ephesians. No, there's one more thing. Let's go back to Numbers 15.

Numbers 15. Numbers 15 and verse 32.

We see that, you know, with all the words that God associated with the Sabbath, that He did show that this is punishable—we've already read it—by death. In verse 32, what would seem almost an innocent little situation, maybe to you and me in the world we live in today, it says, while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found the man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him under guard because it hadn't been explained what should be done to him. And God said to Moses, like, okay, what do we do? He's out gathering sticks that looks like it's in violation of your Sabbath command, God. The Lord said to Moses, the man must surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. So as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died. Do you think God was serious about the Sabbath day and how we keep it? I think he was pretty serious. I think when he says, keep it the way I say, it's something that's very important to him.

We've seen what happened to Israel when they didn't. They lost everything. They lost everything and went into captivity. So the Sabbath, among all the commandments of God that you and I must keep, the Sabbath is one that God talks about often. And the true church of God, the true church of God, and I'm talking about the true church of God, people who follow him and his way completely. I'm not talking about a corporation name or an organization name, but the true church of God will keep his Sabbath, all of his Sabbaths, and learn to keep them the way God said. When you look in the world around us, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, there is no other, no other church other than the true church of God and the people who follow his ways who are keeping all of his Sabbaths as commanded in the fourth commandment. The Jews certainly didn't and don't. Jesus Christ chided them about the way they abused the Sabbath. We know that they didn't even keep the Passover on the correct night back in Jesus Christ's time, and they don't today. They don't keep the Feast of Tabernacles the way that the Bible says keep the Feast of Tabernacles, so we can cross them off the list. We have other churches that will keep the seventh-day Sabbath, but they don't keep all of the holy convocations in Leviticus 23.

So we can cross them off the list. The church of God, the true church of God, will live by every word of the Bible and keep all of the commands that God gave us to do. That's just what God would have us do, and that's what you and I need to be doing, learning, and living.

So with that, let's go back to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5. You know what? Before we do that, let's go to Isaiah 58 one more time. We turned to Isaiah 58 last time, but let's do it again because I want to show you a continuation of the analogy that God used when he gave Moses when Moses was approaching that burning bush. When God said, Moses, take your shoes off. The ground you are on is holy ground.

In Isaiah 58 verse 13, he uses that same analogy again as he talks about the Sabbath day. Let's read it again so we have it all in our minds. He says, if you turn your foot away, you know, if you turn your foot away, you don't use what you do during the week on my Sabbath day. Wherever your feet wander on the six days of the week, they wander to what my will is on the seventh day of the week. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then, then you will delight yourself in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the high heels of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. You want to delight in God? You want to delight in the Sabbath day? We've got to do. We've got to learn to keep the Sabbath the way God said to keep it. It has to become a delight. None of us keep the Sabbath perfectly yet. There are a lot of things that we can learn in the process. Back in Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25, talks about assembling ourselves together.

Crystal clear from God's commands when he says, holy convocations, I want my people together.

I want them in one place, in one accord. I want them to be at one with one another. I want them to be at one with God. I want them to be at one with Jesus Christ. I want them to know each other, and I want them to appear before me on those 52 weekly Sabbaths, so seven holy days, and pass over for a baptized member as well. But in verse 24, he says, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. We can do that when we're with one another, and clearly, says, not forsaking the assembling ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Now, I could turn to Hebrews 4 verse 9 too. I think you know Hebrews 4 verse 9, where clearly in the New Testament says, there remains a Sabbath-esmos, there remains a Sabbath for the people of God. Clearly, the Sabbath is still in existence. It's a sign between God and his people. And God makes it clear here too, I want people together. I want my people to come together before me. And then right after he talks about assembling of ourselves together, look what he says, for if we sin willfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses, of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be, though thought worthy, who has this analogy of feet again, who has trampled the Son of God underfoot. Just walked all over what he said. Just counted him as a common thing. Walked all over his holy ground. Didn't take his shoes off and leave those aside as he entered holy ground. He trampled all over him. That's what God is saying here. How much worse will he be thought worthy, who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? Do you think God thinks this is important? Do you think that God thinks, eh, you know what, if you can get there fine, if you've got something better to do, if it's easier to lay in bed for a few hours more and flip on something? I think God is pretty serious when he talks about all these words that we've talked to as he taught Israel and that he teaches us and tells us, you go back, you go back and look at what you were called to, you look at how God is pleased and do the things that God would have us have us do. So now let's turn over to Ephesians 5.

We completed the book of Ephesians in the Bible study here this last, uh, this last week. Many, many, many, many, many things in the book of Ephesians. It'll be being talked a lot up at the general conference of elders, um, over here in the next week or so as well. In Ephesians 5 and, uh, verse 8, some of the many things that we can look at in Ephesians, Paul writes to us and he says, for you, that's you and me, you were once darkness. You didn't have the truth. You didn't know where the truth is, but God has led you to the truth. You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk, and remember what our definition of walk is in the New Testament, progress, make due use of the opportunities along the way, walk as children of life, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out, finding out, discerning, ferreting out, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. The original Greek in there is finding out what is well pleasing to God, and if we truly love God, if the agape is in our heart that we would love God with all our hearts, minds, and soul, shouldn't we be looking to see what is well pleasing to God? And so we would keep His Sabbath, and what is it that He wants us to do on His Sabbath day? So let's spend some time talking about that, and let's use, let's use the Bible for that, and think about as we progress, as the sun sets on Friday evening, what do we do?

Right? I think everyone is sometimes thought, what do we do? How do we fill this 24-hour period? It's not an uncommon question that comes from people who are newer to the church. You probably have heard it from some of your family, maybe even someone who is new who has been starting here. It's something that people, what do you do for that whole 24-hour period? If you just go to church for a few hours, what do you do the rest of the time? Just sit home and watch the clock?

And it's a good question. That isn't what God intended. We clearly saw that. In Matthew 12, we'll turn there in a bit, but I'll quote it now, Jesus Christ said, you know, it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath. He expects some things to be being done. We know the things that we don't do. We don't work. We don't do the things that we do the other six days of the week. We don't do laundry. We don't watch our football games. We don't, um, there I say it, teens, we don't play our video games. We don't do those things. The other things are of these other six days of the week.

That's distinct from the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day is holy ground. The touch is God's time.

And so when we enter into holy ground, as the sun sets on Friday night, what can we do to make that Sabbath special? You know, if you look at if you look at what the Jews do, and I won't say that they're perfect examples of everything, but you know, I see TV shows. I don't know anyone of that faith, but I understand that, you know, there may be a very nice dinner that gets done that day, all prepared before the sun goes down. But, you know, and we live in daylight savings time. I don't know about you, but rarely are we eating dinner at eight o'clock at night or any things like that. Dinner is usually done and dishes done and put away before the sun sets on Friday night during the summer. A different story in the winter. What do we do? Do we do anything to mark the distinction of that time that it begins? Do our children know or do they? Is there something in our homes? It's like we've just entered onto holy ground. When Moses came to holy ground, God said, take your shoes off, Moses. Don't walk on my holy ground with your shoes. What changes when we enter into holy ground? The Sabbath day. Is it marked? Well, maybe some suggestions, right? Maybe. And I'm not saying you have to do these things because you can think, too. What do we do to show that this holy day is distinct? And I'm certainly not saying that we do it all perfectly. We have things to learn about the Sabbath day, too.

Maybe we mark sunset with a prayer, acknowledging we have just entered into holy ground.

Maybe we put... turn the TV off. Maybe we put the iPad aside. Maybe we put the phone aside. Maybe we collect from our children, saying, you know what? This is holy ground. Six days a week, you can have this and this and this. This is holy ground. We don't need this on God's holy day. Maybe, right? Maybe we can do something like that. Maybe if there's a dessert or something your family likes, that can be prepared ahead of time. And as the day begins, that can mark and let us, not just our children, right? Reminders to us. We've just entered into holy time. We've just entered into God's time. Music has never been a big part of my life. I appreciate everyone who... where music is a big part of their lives. It's important to God. Music is throughout the Bible. One thing I've seen or learned, I guess, recently, even on the Sabbath day, is, boy, if you put on a song that isn't modern, it isn't really, really, really loud, right? Soothing and whatever, that has words that draw you to God, that can really affect your mood. It can really get you into where you are. Last night, Debbie and I were driving up to Jacksonville, the sunset, and we put on a couple of those songs, and it was just a nice way to think about, wow, we are in holy time. We're still a few minutes away from where we were going up there in Jacksonville, but it set the mood. It sets the way that we think, and so the night changes the conversation, changes the things we think about. We're conscious that we have moved in to holy time. So, perhaps we can do something like that. What would our prayer be about? We could have a prayer of Thanksgiving, right? Psalm 100, verse 2, talks about a prayer of Thanksgiving. Maybe that's Psalm 30, verse 4, Psalm 102, says, come before his presence with singing. When we enter the Sabbath day, we've entered into holy ground. Maybe your family even likes singing hymns. Maybe there's something you can do that gets your family in the mood and makes them realize we've just entered holy time. In the winter, although eight o'clock is still pretty early by most people's standards, right? So, what do we do? You know, whether we have children or whether it's just husband or wife, or what do we do if we're alone on that Friday evening? You know, I have always found Friday night, it's precious time to me because it's time that it can be for dedicated study. Often, I'm looking over my sermon notes or whatever, but it is just peaceful time, peaceful time where I am focused on what God wants and being immersed in a topic. You can do the same thing. Maybe if you have a family, you know there is a Bible, just a piece of Scripture that you can read. I remember when our kids were growing up, and you know, there's ways you can approach family Bible studies that can bring out what you want to have happen versus everyone shutting down, right? And so sometimes when you're just reading Scriptures and you allow your children to read a chapter and the next one to read a chapter and you, I don't know if you, I'll just take an example, you know, if you begin in Genesis or begin in Matthew, and as they're reading, and there's no, there's no, there's no pointed questions and we're not barking out. Well, what do you think about that? And what do you think about? And you just let the conversation go organically, right? And all of a sudden, when something reads, a child will pop up and say, well, what does that mean? Well, I never saw that in the Bible before. I remember one key with one of our kids, we read something Bible and then he popped up and said, well, I never saw that in the Bible before. I didn't know that was in the Bible.

We can learn what it is. And there's got to be that easy, easy conversation about God that has to become part of our lives. And on the Sabbath day, it should be easy conversation. Not that you're the schoolmaster and you've got these quizzes and bark this out and bark that out and put a kid on the spot. Let it be, you know, bring it out so that they can see what's in the Bible. And sometimes just reading through the scriptures. Just read it. There's nothing, there's a lot we can learn just by reading through the scriptures. If you look at Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 6, the way God instructs families, right? Not just families with kids. This is husband and wife, or even by ourselves as well, right? Deuteronomy 6.

And beginning in verse 6. It says, these words, God is saying this to Moses, these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Well, there's a time to teach them diligently, this is what God says, this is how this family will operate, we will do what God says, and on this day, this is how this family will run, because this is what we want to do what God wants us to. But then you see, this easy conversation is just part of the everyday conversation, so that God is just part of the picture. Sometimes I wonder, is that, is God a part of our families, just like our wives are a part of our families, our children are part of our families, or whoever else is living with us, that there can just be this conversation about God, no different than what was the weather like today, what did your how did your school work go today, how was it at the office today, what did you what did you run into, or what did you buy at the supermarket. You know, the easy conversation, strive for that, and on the Sabbath we can do some of that, but the time needs to be structured around God's will, and it doesn't have to be the same every week. You know, some people I know when I was growing up, not again, you know, I could speak only from experience, but I remember one of the things as a teenager that I never minded doing. It never bothered me. Back in those days, the church had a series of either 30, I think it was 36, maybe 58, correspondence, course lessons at that time. And what my father decided that we should do, and I found it very, I just found it very enjoyable, actually, we would sit down with a correspondence, course lesson, and we would write out all the scriptures, every single one of them, and there was always more you could do, and it was very beneficial. And not at all, but it filled the day, and you learned something about it. You know, there is something about writing the scriptures. Those of you who I've worked with prior to baptism, you know, I will often, well, not often, I always give you a couple of these Bible studies, right? Repentance and baptism at Holy Days. I've adapted some of the old studies from long, long ago into Bible studies that actually have the questions about it, and then the scripture answers it so you can see this is what the Bible teaches. And I always ask the people, write it down.

Take the time to write it down. It's, there's not a time test. I don't have to have it back. I don't even need to see what you do, but write it down. In Deuteronomy 17, God says, write. He told the kings, you and I are future kings, right, in God's kingdom. He said, write down the scriptures.

What would be so wrong with that if we had our, maybe did something like that? Maybe not every week, but maybe that's something that your child will do. Find the things that draw them to God, that they see that God isn't the burden, and God isn't just an autocrat that's barking out orders, but God is a loving Father who wants what's best for us and wants for eternity what's with us.

Friday nights, Friday nights shouldn't be a challenge if we're thinking, if we're thinking about things. You know, if nothing more, you can, you know, if you're by yourself, boy, we live in a world that is tremendous. You've got, I just looked at something from the home office this week, and there's something like 31,000 sermons on our website. That boggles the mind, right? 31,000 sermons on ucg.org. You wonder how that is even possible. If you want to sit and listen to a sermon, listen to one. If there's a topic that you need to dig more into, certainly you hear something in Sabbath services, certainly you hear something that someone talks about, you think, oh man, I'd like to just, I just like to dig into that, and I'd like to, I'd like to become an expert in what God says in that area. The Sabbath is a good time to do that. It's a dedicated time. You're not going anywhere else. You're not having to do anything. Your wife's not going to say, take out the garbage, or whatever else. It's dedicated time for God. Do some of that time.

As we come into Sabbath morning, you know, here in both Jacksonville and Orlando, our services are not, you know, at daybreak. They are, they are scheduled, you know, usually at 11 or 11 30 in Jacksonville, 1 30 or 2 30 here. There's plenty of time in the morning to get up and have a pleasant breakfast and time to pray and all the things that we might feel rushed doing during the week, but on the Sabbath, you don't have to feel rushed. There's plenty of time on the Sabbath to be able to spend some time in extra prayer. Maybe get that prayer list out, you know, we haven't updated our local prayer list with everyone who needs prayers, but that wouldn't be a bad day to think about your brethren, pray about them, and draw closer to them because the intercessory prayer really does, really does make a difference in us. And then when we come to church and see the people, we feel much, much closer, you know, to them. Turn back to Acts 16. Well, let me talk about holy convocations a minute, too, while you turn to Acts 16. I mean, here, you know, we know there's a holy convocation every Sabbath. I mean, it's always here, whatever area you live in. And last week, I broached the subject, but I'm going to broach it again. When we come to a holy convocation, it's of God. It's His time. It's time that we are walking on His holy ground when you and I walk into this building and we spend the time that we spend here. What would God have us do? What would we bring to Sabbath services? And what shoes might we leave off as we come onto holy ground? And last week, and I know I heard a couple comments, even from my own family, about, you know, when I brought up iPads and cell phones and Bibles and things like that. And I'm not at all. Wherever we read the Bible is fine. But let me tell you something. I could read the entire Bible on this phone if I wanted to. Almost never do I use my phone for the Bible. If I had an iPad, I could read the Bible, and that's fine. Reading the Word of God is a good thing to do. But with this phone, I do almost everything, it seems. It's like almost attached to my lip. My lips? No. Fortunately, not that. Attached to my hip. But I do literally everything on this phone. I receive texts, I make calls, I get calls, I send emails, I read emails, I can check sports scores, I can even play games on it. And yes, teens, I actually do play a few games on my phone. Not on the Sabbath, though. And that can be a challenge sometimes, too, and I just need a little break. But whenever I look at my phone or iPad, I never think of it as a holy item. It never, when I look at my phone, do I think, well, that's of God. It's a blessing to have it, but I always look at it as just a tool. But you know what? Whenever I see this book, I always think of God. I always think of the Word of God. The only thing I do with this book is study it and read it and use it to learn more about God. And I use it almost exclusively. And just like my phone is with me, whenever I visit you or we meet someplace, my Bible's in my car because I don't go too far away from it because I always want the Word of God with me. So when I come to services, God's holy convocation, I would like to have the book of God with me to make me focus on Him.

Maybe on Sabbath days, you know, use your iPads, use your iPhones for everything else. And I'm not even saying I'm not making any new commandment here or anything like that. Just having us think. You know, maybe on the Sabbath we bring the Word of God, the thing that actually, actually makes us and the only thing we identify with that book is of God. Okay, let's turn to Acts 16.

Throughout the New Testament, we see examples of the apostles, Paul specifically as we go through his epistles, of him keeping the Sabbath. If anyone doubts that Paul kept the Sabbath, talk to me after services, call me during the week, I'll give you scripture after scripture after scripture. I think we all know Paul kept the Sabbath, you know, he kept the Sabbath.

Paul kept the Sabbath, you can't read the Bible, you have to be in complete denial if you think that Paul didn't keep the Sabbath. But here in Acts 16, something different that Paul did on that day. In Acts 16, verse 11, he's coming to Philippi and it says, therefore sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Sabbath race, and the next day came to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia. Verse 13, and on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made, and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.

Now, almost every other time that you read about Paul on the Sabbath day, he's in the synagogue, or he's in a place, for instance, in Corinth when they no longer met in the synagogue, they met at someone's house, and in Ephesus they met someplace else at the at the school of Tyrannus.

But he's always with the group, but here when he went to Philippi, he went out of the city and he met at the riverside with a group of women. Now, these were Christian women, but they weren't in the synagogue, if indeed there was even a synagogue in Philippi, but they weren't all Christians. He went out there and he met with them, and as you read through it, you see that Lydia was there in verse 14. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God.

But in this conversation on the Sabbath day where Paul is with him, the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged Paul, saying, you know, come and stay at my house.

So here's Paul meeting with a group of people, and he must have known that they were out there, but he went to talk to them.

There was time on the Sabbath to do holy convocations, but there was time to talk to others as well in a more focused thing. As you read what Paul did here, it sounds more like a picnic setting, right? They were sitting around. Paul was talking about the things of God. It was a lie-hearted thing. He didn't bring his podium and microphone with him, and he wasn't pounding a podium. He was just talking about the things of God. He was just talking about Jesus Christ. He was just talking about who he was and what he did for us. And as Lydia listened and she heard in this setting, this very peaceful setting, God opened her mind.

So one of the things that we can do on the Sabbath is spend some time with others and maybe send some time, maybe with newer people or people who have expressed an interest in the church in the past in a peaceful setting and just easy, not with the motion or the mission of, I will convert them.

That rarely works. But just talk about it. Talk about who God is and have that peaceful setting. Now, that might happen at the river. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen instead of a holy convocation. But it can happen. That's a good thing to do on the Sabbath. God would be pleased with that if we're talking about Him. And obviously, He put His blessing on this meeting because Lydia was called. But you know, it strikes me in both Jacksonville and Orlando, and I know there are some people in Jacksonville who are listening to this part of the sermon here or this sermon this afternoon. In both of our halls here, we are very blessed. We have time in these halls to be around here much more than the hour and a half for services or the three hours that we might be here. You know, we have this hall rented until six o'clock every single Sabbath evening. It starts at, I think, one o'clock is when we do. In Jacksonville, we have it also for four or five hours. And if we stayed longer there, they wouldn't care if we stayed long because the relationship in both churches are very good. You know, I looked at the Jacksonville snack table. I look at our snack table. There's food, right? There's food at both places. I've been impressed with what has been brought to both snack tables. There's time. There's time if you want to sit down with someone and just have a nice conversation. You can do that for an hour. It doesn't have to be just standing in a, hello, how are you? How was your week? And get on with life. We can take the time. We can even invite someone, you know? We can go back to one of those little classrooms that are open and just sit and talk for a while. That can happen. God would be pleased with that. That would be the fellowship and the bonding that we could do. We don't have to run out of here 15 or 20 minutes after services. God did want His people to be together. When you look at Matthew 12 and Jesus Christ was there, He was walking in the grain fields with His disciples, and they were hungry.

He wasn't just sitting by Himself for 20 of the 24 hours of the Sabbath. God designed this day for us to be together in quiet repose, not in parties and in wild celebrations or anything like that, focused on what He has to do. But there are the times that we could do that.

We could do that and just talk about things like that and spend some time one-on-one with one another. I mentioned Matthew 12 when Jesus Christ said it was lawful to do good.

And we know what it means to do good. We've talked about agape enough in the last several months here how God is very pleased with us when we show agape to one another, when we're looking to see what is well pleasing to God. What is well pleasing to Him is when we agape Him with all our hearts, minds, and souls. And He sees us agape-ing each other, looking out for each other's needs, getting to know each other, bonding together, doing things before we're asked to do them and when we see a need.

And so we know it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And that doesn't mean we're going to go out and do any service projects on the Sabbath or anything like that. But there are things that we can do on the Sabbath even at home. You know, we have, you know, over the last, oh, I don't know, several years in every church, and it's a very nice feature.

It's a very nice feature. We have greeting cards that everyone sends out to someone who's sick. I know we do it to people in the local congregation who are sick. And now when the home office requests come out, you see the cards out there that are sent to those as well. I know that the people who receive those cards are very grateful for them. But one of the things that we could do on the Sabbath, because when Christ talks about how it is that we serve Him and He's pleased, when He says, you know, when I was sick, you visited Me.

When I was hungry, you fed Me. When I was naked, you clothed Me. When I was in prison, you visited Me. You know, any of those things that we did on the Sabbath that Jesus Christ said would be pleasing to Him. And if we have someone who is in the hospital, you know, that's good. That's good. God would say, yes, that's a good thing to do. Go visit them in the hospital if they want to be visited.

Right? Some people don't want to be visited, and that's okay, too. But we can visit people and let them know, even by the things that we do. You know, sometimes I will hear someone sick, and then a week later I think, oh, we didn't send a greeting card out to them, and I keep trying to chide myself, and I chide myself, and say, nope, got to have them handy, and if the woman I hear sends something out.

Now, I often send out anointing cloths, and so I put a greeting in there. But you know, we've lost something in America with emails and texts and group greeting cards. There's nothing wrong on the Sabbath to sit down and write a letter to someone that you haven't seen for a while. There's nothing wrong on the Sabbath to sit down when you're thinking of someone and write your own personal greeting card, even though you signed one, you know, last week at church. People appreciate those things. It does bind us together. You are giving the time. That's something lawful to do on the Sabbath.

God would be pleased to see us thinking of each other and doing those things that don't require work. Doesn't mean you go out on Saturday morning and go to CVS or Hallmark or wherever it is and buy greeting cards. If you're going to do that, have the stuff ahead of time, and you know, the world is for six days a week, and on the seventh day, this is God's time. Not the world's time, and everything else we do is during this time. But there are things when you look around that that you can do, you know, that we can do that can draw us closer to one another, and that God would be pleased with to see us thinking of each other.

If you know someone who's having a problem, you know, maybe it's the Acts 16 thing, and you know, they just need someone to talk about. They've got some issues, and they don't know what to do. Spending time. You know, we live in a world now that is so busy with so many things that sometimes it's just like, where does the whole week go by?

You know, but on the Sabbath, we can pick up the phone, and we can do some of those things, and it's good. It's good if we can do that. There's things that we can do. Well, you know, one of the things we can do is journal, right? I am not one who journals, but as I look back over my life, I wish that I had taken some time to write down some things that I have learned over the years, and sometimes life is too busy during the week. But on Sabbath, you know, we may find ourselves reflecting where did I please God? What did I not do? Where did I fall short? And it might be not bad to write down some of those things if you are so predisposed to that. And oftentimes in the Bible, we see where God, you know, says, write it down, right? We read Isaiah 30 verse 8 not too long ago. Write it down. Write it on a scroll so that future generations can see it, Isaiah. He tells us that, you know, Moses wrote down things. God's people write down things awful, or not awful, often. My mind is ahead of itself. But it's not bad to do those things. You know, there are, and it would be not bad to be able to look back at five years ago and see what were your thoughts were as you came out of the Days of Unleavened Bread in 2017. And are those the same thoughts that I have now, or have I progressed? And to see that we really are walking with God, and He is... we are letting Him change us, and we are allowing Him to lead us to His Kingdom.

Not bad. Not bad to take some of those times and do some of those things whenever we have the opportunity to do it. Oh, is it that time, really? Okay. I'm going to give you one more than you can think, right? Meditate. I'm going to, you know, meditate. Wow. You know, meditating on the Sabbath is good. If you, you know, if you can take some time to just go out in nature and meditate for a while, what a good thing to do. You know, God is there. He says what you're doing. Make yourself think, right? I can give you a whole bunch of scriptures here. There's one, two, three, four, five that I have. Three of them in Psalm 119. Philippians 4.8. Think on these things. Go out in nature and spend an hour meditating. Let God speak to you. If we think about what we can do on the Sabbath rather than the things we can't do, when we feel the inspiration and the zeal that comes from doing the things that God would have us do and using this day, not just for 24 hours to check off the list and get on to Sunday and back to our other six days of the week, I'm telling you we will delight in it. It'll come to the point where when the sunset comes on Sabbath evening, you will wish you had more time because you will feel energized, you will feel at peace, you will feel zeal to go on with your life and do it the way God said. I'd say let us all really strive to keep God's Sabbath holy and to learn to keep it and to let it become the delight that he wants us to, always remembering that we are on his holy ground.