Keep the Sabbath Holy

...by our different lifestyle that God has chosen us to be a different people. We're different from a lot of people, most of the people around us. We could say special, and of course I like the original King James Version calls us peculiar. I'm not sure how comfortable that makes all of us feel. But there is another term for what we are to be and how we're to act that also might seem a little strange to us. Some might even say, well, it's too much, but it's in God's Word, so we need to face up to it. If you'll turn with me to 1 Peter 1. I said I don't want to take claim responsibility for this, but I do want to teach what God's Word says. 1 Peter 1, beginning in verse 15. Let me get to the proper book. It says, But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy, and all your conduct, because it is written, be holy, for I am holy. This is quoting from Leviticus in a number of places. It says this, notably, Leviticus 11, verse 44, several places in chapter 20. Also in Deuteronomy 28, verse 9, it says, The Eternal will establish you as a holy people to himself. Keep the commandments of the Eternal and walk in his ways. So he'll establish you a holy people. But we know from reading here in the New Testament in the book of Peter that it's not just talking about the ancient Israelites. It's talking about those of us who God has called into his church now today. And you might say, is it a big deal to be holy? Well, I'll say that it makes a big difference to God that you treat something holy differently than you treat something that's not. If you'll turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 44, I want to read the fact that because of that, he charged his priests to teach people what was holy and what was not. Ezekiel 44 and verse 23. Now, Jesus Christ is our high priest today, so we don't have men that we call priests. But I consider my employ as a minister of Jesus Christ. Part of my duty is to teach the difference. I teach what it is. Ezekiel 44 and verse 23 says, They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the unholy. Or, I believe, as I said, the original King James says, the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. How much does it matter for you to know the difference between the holy and the profane? Well, to emphasize part of it, I want to read a story that it stuck in my mind clearly since the first time I read it, and I was probably 10 or 11 years old. I'm going to read from the Bible story. Many of you have this, and I see a lot of those nods. And if any of you are younger and haven't read this, we've got copies. I'd be glad to loan it out, because Basil Wolderton tells the stories that are in the Bible, or he tells them he's long since gone, but the stories remain in a very clear way. I'm going to read this as volume 2, and I want to start on page 8.

As I said, this story, it's adapted from Leviticus chapter 10, and this is still part of my introduction, so I realize I'm leading up to something, but keep in mind this question. How important is it to God that we treat things that are holy as holy?

Here, Moses told Aaron and his sons, this is at the beginning of the service in the tabernacle, God will allow you to enter completely into his tabernacle service only after you have spent seven days and nights in your duties at the door. Do exactly as you have been told, or you may have to pay with your lives.

A week later, the elders were told to bring offerings for the first services and use of the altar. All of the people were also told to be present. After the first carcasses were placed on the altar, Moses, Aaron, and his sons went out to stand before the people, while Moses informed the crowd that God was pleased with their offerings. Suddenly, a hissing bolt of fire shot out of the tabernacle, arched upward enough to be seen from outside the curtain fence, and struck the altar. The offering there was quickly consumed by an energy that might have been more like lightning than ordinary flames. This close display of God's power so startled the people that they fell forward in awe. Moses said, this is God's holy fire. He told Aaron, your sons should never allow it to die. Twice a day, live coal should be taken from the altar, carried in a sensor, and a sensor would be like a metal pan that could hold these hot coals, to the holy place, to be sprinkled with incense at the golden altar. And from then on, from that day forward, the tabernacle was in constant use. Early each morning, Aaron's sons came to carry out their preparation duties. Then animals were slaughtered, dressed, and offered for all Israel. This was done again in the afternoon, so that an offering was always on the altar. The unblemished animals used for burnt offerings typified or symbolized the Messiah, who would later come to die for the sins of the people instead of the people having to die. Almost forgot I was going to, Bethel Wolderton, draw some wonderful illustrations, and he's got a wonderful graphic representation of that fire coming out of the Holy of Holies and bursting the offering into flame. And then skip forward a few paragraphs to the actual story, though, now that we have the setup. Two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, arrived for work one morning to find the altar fire barely alive, and their eagerness to get the flames going, they piled on wood that was moist from the morning dew, bearing the last of the live coals. Nadab said, our father Aaron will be here any minute to get live coals for the altar in the Holy Place, and now they're under this wet wood. He said, we'll have to pile some of it off.

Why to go to that trouble, Abihu asked, grabbing a sensor? There's a campfire outside the gate where we can get live coals right away. Knowing that only fire from the large altar was to be used in the Holy Place, Nadab was about to protest. But he said nothing when he thought about how much easier it would be to obtain coals at the campfire. Silently he picked up another sensor and hurriedly joined his brother. Then the two rushed back with the glowing coals. They were relieved to see that Aaron still hadn't shown up. But after a few moments, they became more worried because they realized the campfire coals were starting to become ash covered. If they weren't used right away, coals would have to be dug out from under the new fuel on the altar after all. Unwisely, they decided to make the delivery of live coals to the Holy Place, something only Aaron was to do. After leaving the fire in the Holy Place, a strong uneasiness seized them. They made a frantic rush to the door, but too late. Fingers of fire hissed out of the inner room and struck them lifeless, under the curtains of the tabernacle entrance. A little later, and there's an image of that too, but you can easily imagine what it looks like. A little later, Aaron arrived. He was concerned to find nobody in sight, although the fire was now burning vigorously on the altar. Across the court in the doorway of the tabernacle, he then saw his sons lying motionless. He hurried to reach down to them, and he heard a voice say, don't touch them! Aaron glanced up to see Moses approaching and motioning him away from the dead men. He said they died because they disobeyed God by bringing strange fire before him and trying to take over duties that were yours. God warned them, and he means his warnings. Aaron stood in silent misery, gazing at the flame blackened bodies. Finally, he turned away, realizing that disobedience had to bring punishment. In spite of the shock of the deaths of his nephews, Moses lost no time arranging for burials and for replacements by Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's two other sons. He told them, don't mourn because of Nadab and Abihu.

If you do, it would show that you feel God has dealt unjustly with them. The people were sobered when they heard Nadab and Abihu had died by the direct hand of God. Even a funeral was not to interfere with the tabernacle ceremonies. Aaron had to carry on with his duties, and Eleazar and Ithamar had to start theirs. Their period of service began with a new ruling. The priests on duty would have to abstain from any wine or strong drink, because the excessive use of which could dull one's best judgment. He says it was possible that such had happened with Nadab and Abihu. Of course, that's just inference whether it's possible or not. But as I said, Basil Woverton makes this account come to life. It's in Leviticus 10 verses 1-7, so it's much more brief in the biblical account, but it doesn't take much imagination to see all this happening. And after the account, of course, was this very strong admonition to Aaron and his sons that they must never fail to distinguish between the holy and the profane. Know the difference between what is holy and what's not. So we're God's people, called out of this world for His purpose. That means we need to distinguish between what is holy and what is not. Now, there's one particular area of this that I want to especially focus on, but first we should make clear that we do understand what it means to be holy. It's a word that's not uncommon to us, but have we thought about what exactly it means. And Scripture, we can read many times, God is holy. We've read a couple of scriptures already that say that. The Hebrew word that's used in the Bible is kadash, and it means holy. It has some secondary meanings, like pure or sanctified.

And by the way, the Greek hajio means pretty much the same exact thing. There's not a lot of variety. It's not like some words where you get a lot of intricate meaning. These words are translated well.

And I checked on the related word, the definition for sanctify. In Hebrew, it's derived from the word for holy. And it means to make something holy. Or the definition that we've used in the church for many years of something that's sanctified is set aside for a holy purpose or for holy use.

And that fit I pulled out my Unger's Bible dictionary. It said the same thing for sanctified. And curiously, although it had definitions for holiness and holy this and holy that, it didn't have the word holy. I guess because holy, we could say that the term holy means to have holiness, which is defining a word by itself. That can be difficult. But actually, although it might seem, I don't want to sound like I'm talking out of this and saying the word holy has no meaning, if we read through the Bible, I think it becomes very clear. And it was summed up in a definition that I've heard Dr. Ward use. He says that something is holy if it has the active presence of God. I like that. If it has the active presence of God, if God is in it or if God is using it, if something is of God, then it's holy. We can think, what has God made holy? Well, in the Bible, we can find a number of things. Of course, one of the first things I thought of is the Holy Spirit. It's God's Spirit. It's of Him. It's holy. We've already shown God's people are called holy. God's law is holy. And you don't need to worry. I've got a lot of things that you don't have to have a list if you're writing, but His Word is holy. There are references to His holy name. We read a story about holy fire, holy garments for the priests who used holy oil, and holy vessels that they took into a holy place. And God wanted to make sure that there was a distinction. So once a year, the high priest could go into the holy of holies. And there He found the Ark of the Covenant, which was holy. It was served by Israel, a holy nation. We as the church, as I said, are called to be a holy people. And there's a term we use quite often. We have seven holy days.

But there's more than just those seven. We're here today because it's the Sabbath, and this is holy time. Now, we're not likely to have to deal very much with holy oil or holy fire or anything like that, but on a regular basis, we deal with holy time. It comes up once a week, and then those seven other occasions. God sanctified the Sabbath. That means God made it special. He made the Sabbath holy. Now, I've spent a fair bit of time in the early part of the sermon leading up to this, but I want to spend some time then discussing how should we conduct ourselves on the Sabbath? Because if we look at that story of Nadab and Abihu, we can realize it does matter to God that we treat things that are holy in a special way, that we distinguish between what's holy and what's profane. And of course, we don't get to decide. Only God can make something holy.

Now, and I say this as a side, I pointed out, among other things, God's people are holy. That's not the point of my sermon, but I thought, while I'm saying that, we could all take a... Now, it's easy for me. I'm looking at all of you, but if you were to glance around surreptitiously, those people you're looking at are holy people. We should treat each other a special way and be careful about how we treat each other, about how we think about each other. But my main focus for most of the rest of the message is that we make a distinction in distinguishing the holy time that is the Sabbath.

Now, before I go into some of the details of things we do or don't do on the Sabbath, I think it is worthwhile to do a review of the Scriptures to remind ourselves to make absolutely certain that the Bible does say that it's holy time. Let's start at the earliest place we can in Genesis 2. Genesis 2, the first three verses, the first chapter, of course, recounts what we call the recreation of the earth, God making it new again by the power of His Spirit.

And then in chapter 2, it goes to show that, I like the way Mr. Armstrong described it, he wasn't finished creating, but he was going to do a different type of creating on the seventh day.

Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished, and on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. And by the way, it's interesting, the word for Sabbath in Hebrew is derived from the word for seven, and the word for rest is derived from the word for Sabbath. All these words, linguistically, they're all linked together. In other words, by definition, the Sabbath is the seventh day. It can't be another day. And resting is part of the Sabbath. And it says in verse 3, And God blessed the seventh day, sanctified it. He made it holy, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. And I've heard many times people, ministers say, He didn't rest because it was worn out, and He just couldn't go on for another day. But He purposely said, I'm going to make this time different. And He made it a holy time.

Now, that makes it easy to understand why the fourth of the Ten Commandments is worded so differently. Let's turn ahead to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus 20, beginning in verse 8.

Now, this could vary by what translation you have, but most of the Ten Commandments begin with the words, thou shalt not. Or a more modern translation is, you shall not. Or, if you get really modern, it could say, don't do this. But the fourth Commandment reads entirely different. In verse 8 of Exodus 20, it says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember back to that beginning of the world when I created, when I made this time holy. So remember it to keep it holy. Maintain the day's holiness. Now, of course, we know we can't make it holy, and we can't stop it from being holy. So even if we don't recognize it, if we treat it as profane, that doesn't mean it stops being holy. It just means that we're damaging ourselves by not treating it the way it should be.

And it's funny, I don't remember where I've got it in my notes, but somewhere I made the point, I keep using the term profane because I like just the sound of it. Profane doesn't mean bad or evil. It simply means not holy. Now, it's based on other things. We've used profanity and such. I don't mean we've used profanity. We've used the word profanity to describe profanity. I didn't think that one through, did I? But we think of that as bad, but to say something is profane doesn't mean wicked evil. It just means not holy. You know, tomorrow is a profane day, and so I'm going to watch football. Talk more about football later, perhaps.

So getting back to here in Exodus 20, verse 8, the Sabbath is a memorial. It reminds us that God is the Creator. But it's important for us to remember, in addition to looking back and reminding us of something that happened thousands of years ago, this day of rest also looks ahead.

It looks ahead, and for a particular reason, the world around us is caught up in sin. And it's caught up in the consequences of people sin, which cuts them off from God. And there's a longing in the world for something different. And I think even people that don't understand God's way realize there's this yearning. People want to rest from the trials and the tests and all the difficulties out there. As I said, even if they don't express it, often they feel it. I think it's built into mankind to look ahead for something that's better. This longing for a release, for arrest, from the hassles of this life. And that's where we turn to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews 4, and I'm guessing a lot of you are already ahead of me on this, but Hebrews 4, the writer who most scholars and biblical students believe is the Apostle Paul, some say that it was someone else, so sometimes I'll just say the author. I think there's good reason to believe it was Paul. It was a well-trained Christian, a teacher of God's way.

And this whole chapter, and actually starting earlier in the preceding chapter, in chapter 3, it makes a metaphor between the nation of ancient Israel wanting to get into the promise land and wanting a rest from their wandering and being cut off, and a metaphor between that and mankind also longing for something better, for a rest that's finally going to come when God's kingdom is established. And that's where we can pick up with the first verse. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering his rest, saying a promise remains, let us fear lest any of you seem to come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them. By them it means ancient Israel who were taught God's way and looked forward to entering the promise land. But this is saying there is a rest yet to come and we've been taught the God's truth. But the word which they heard did not profit them, ancient Israel, not being mixed with faith with those who heard it.

For we who have believed do enter that rest. So we who believe do enter God's rest, but those who don't believe won't as it goes on. So I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest. Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. This entering is setting up a dichotomy because we know ancient Israel eventually did go into the promise land. Actually, not many of the actual people who refused to go in after they believed the faulty report of the 10 spies, most of them they wandered 40 years and that generation died off and their children did enter. But the fact that they entered the rest didn't mean that the whole thing was fulfilled because it says there's still a rest to come. In verse 4, he's spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way. God rested on the seventh day from all his works. We've read that. And again in this place, they shall not enter my rest. So he's tying these things together. Since therefore it remains that some must enter it and to those whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, so it's saying some, you know, ancient Israel fulfilled their purpose and that metaphor, but he's saying still today there's a rest to be entered and some haven't entered it.

So again he designates a certain day saying in David, that is one of the Psalms, today after such a long time it's been said, today, not back in ancient Israel, but today if you'll hear his voice don't harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest then he would not have afterward have spoken of another day. That's saying if the whole meaning of this were fulfilled when Israel finally entered the Promised Land it wouldn't have come up again, but he only brought them into a symbol. There's a real rest for all of mankind yet to come. Therefore, in chapter 9, there remains a rest for the people of God. And I think many of you know where it says a rest, this is a different word for rest than all the other places. Everywhere else where the word rest appears, the author wrote the Greek word kataposis, which means to stop working, to literally stop rest. But here in verse 9 the word that translated rest is sabbatismos, meaning because this hasn't yet been fulfilled of the people entering the real rest there remains a keeping of the Sabbath for God's people.

I'm really belaboring this because it's kind of densely written, but there's something to that. For if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not... Oh, I want to go into verse 10. For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his.

And therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest. Let's be diligent to enter the rest that the Sabbath picture is yet to come, lest anyone fall short of it. So what we're getting at is this greater rest that the Sabbath symbolizes is the peace that will come in God's kingdom. When Jesus Christ returns, when Satan is put away, and there's a thousand years of peace, of everyone knowing God's way, there won't anymore be that longing, that weariness that seems to be all around the world today. There'll be peace and happiness. There'll be a rest from the results of sin. That's why, as I said, it says in verse 9, there remains therefore a Sabbath for the people of God, because we're looking forward to that yet future fulfillment. The Sabbath looks back to God's creation and then his rest. It also looks forward to the completion of a spiritual creation.

The Sabbath is a weekly reminder of God's plan and purpose for mankind. It's a New Testament doctrine. It's not just something in the Old Testament for ancient Israel that was done and nailed to the cross, you know, Jesus Christ crucifixion.

That makes the Sabbath exciting, full of meaning for us. Now, there are plenty of other scriptures that we could turn to, and we often have, when we've got books and we've got magazine articles and you've heard lots of sermons to refute the claims by some people who call themselves Christian that don't keep the Sabbath, that say that it was nailed to the cross. But in honest reading, the Bible shows that's not true. Now, Jesus Christ kept the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, it was his normal custom. You know, as it says, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He never taught anything about it ceasing to be holy time. Long after Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, his disciples continued keeping the Sabbath, and they taught others to do so.

Slowing myself down here. You know, the coffee's getting going.

But my purpose isn't to examine all of those scriptures today. I think many of us, perhaps all of us, have done so. That's why you're already here. I didn't have to convince you that today is the Sabbath. So I want to devote less energy now to answering the question of if we should keep the Sabbath and turn to focusing on how. What do we do? God wants us to be careful to distinguish between the holy and the profane. Nadab and Abihu died because they did not. Now, I'll say, that was a dramatic example. The New Testament says that those things happen to them for our examples. Now, that was an example for all the nation of Israel right then and there, but it was preserved in writing, so it will continue to be our example. Fortunately, if we make a mistake that violates the Sabbath, we don't get fire hissed down and burn us up. And I'm very thankful for that, because how many of us haven't sometimes accidentally slipped and treated the Sabbath as more as profane or at least more profane than we should. But it's important to remember, if a person never repents from that type of behavior, fire is going to be the ultimate result. But I think the likelihood of us ending up there should be very small unless we decide that's what we want. So let's turn again to what do we do? How do we keep it holy?

Well, we've already read one very clear command for how to keep the Sabbath. It's in the 10 Commandments listing. Don't work. Don't work. It's not a workday. It's a day of rest. Rest for you, for your family, for your servants. Back then, they actually had bond slavery. Nowadays, we'd say, for your employees. Don't work, but also don't hire someone to do something on the Sabbath that you were going to do. Now, I'm going to, as an aside, mention, because later on I'm going to address a lot of specific questions that have come up. But this is a place, I think, to address the question that comes up based on Exodus 35 and verse 3. I'm not going to turn there, but it says, you shall kindle no fire in all your dwellings. And that's the only place that says anything about fire on the Sabbath.

And we can almost overlook it, except if you were to go to Israel or even in New York City, the Orthodox Jews there are very particular. They won't turn on a light switch, because they believe there could be a spark generated, and that would be kindling a fire. So, you know, they take this, I think, well, I'm not going to say to an extreme, I think they misunderstand what it means. Because that command in the midst of Exodus 35 was in the middle of God giving instructions for building of the tabernacle, the holy place where worship of God was to be. And they were told, bring the gold and silver, and I've got workmen, I'm going to show them exactly how to build these things, and have your women weave special cloth and put it together. But in the midst of it, he makes a comment that, remember the Sabbath, though, don't kindle a fire on the Sabbath. And he used a particular word, not the normal word for just fire, but a word that means big, consuming fire, or, as we've often said, an industrial fire. He was saying, the work on the temple or on the tabernacle is important, and it's a holy service, but the Sabbath is still holy. Keep the Sabbath. You know, don't build a fire so you can be forging this metal. And, you know, sometimes that's our excuse. We say, well, this is for God or for His church, so I'm going to push forward and do this work. God said, no, no, the Sabbath is the Sabbath, even if it's for me, stop that work. Now, there are some exceptions, obviously. Aaron and Nate Avenue of IHU and, you know, the priest had to go offer the sacrifices. And now, today, ministers get to drive their cars long distances and give sermons. But, you know, there are some things I don't do on the Sabbath that otherwise I would. I try not to be working on sermons on the Sabbath. And I'm not saying that's bad, but it's my personal thought. I try to have all my other ministerial work done and only do what has to be done on the Sabbath to help us worship, you know, and keep the Sabbath.

And He would, you know, I think that's part of what God was getting at in that. So, let's dispense with that thing about the fire. But there, so we've still got don't work on the Sabbath. If you'll turn with me to Leviticus 23, we'll see one other very clear instruction for how to keep the Sabbath holy. Leviticus 23, and we'll read in verse 3. I think something was wrong. I haven't drunk any water since I came up here. You were probably wondering if it was somebody else, right?

Now, many of you remember Leviticus 23 lists all the seven annual holy days and describes how to keep them. But before it goes to the annual holy days, it discusses the weekly holy day. And in verse 3 it says, six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest. Okay, that reiterates the point we said of don't work. Then, comma, a holy convocation. And he reminds us again, don't do any work on it. It's the Sabbath of the Eternal and all your dwellings. We could overlook that holy convocation. That's a very religious sounding word. I looked it up in my Unger's Bible dictionary since I had it out trying to find holy. And it says a holy convocation is a holy assembly. It's a meeting of people for worship services. And God said, that's part of the definition of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a time that you come together to worship me.

And as I said, Jesus Christ never said anything to contradict that command. He followed it. It was his custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. And well after his crucifixion, we can read in Hebrews 10.25. I'm not going to turn there. It's something we know very well. It says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. In other words, continue meeting together. And the one day of the week we do that to worship God is on the seventh day Sabbath. It's holy time. Part of how we distinguish it is holy time is we gather and we worship.

Of course, there are other times and reasons that we can gather on other days. Several of us met in different people's homes this past week for Bible study, which was fine. And that's a great thing to do. That wasn't keeping the Sabbath. We couldn't make that time holy. We gather for socials, for work projects. I've said we had a, you know, quite a bunch of us had a good time at the calls a couple weeks ago cutting and splitting firewood, but that wasn't for Sabbath. So that's one of the things we do. And I didn't originally have this in my notes, but it's worth mentioning just that it is important that we gather together, that we meet together as much as we can, because it's that meeting together as much as having a sermon and singing songs. Now, worshiping, singing our songs, praying, and learning of God's Word is very important. But us being together, doing it is also very important. Now, it's wonderful in today's day and age, a group can gather, you know, together and watch this through the webcam, which is not on today because we're updating the software. But, you know, that's a nice way that they can gather. But whenever possible, it's best that people do gather and do it together, not individually, all in their homes. And I'll say this, you know, it's not a sermon that makes it the Sabbath.

And the reason I'm saying this is not to impugn anyone here. I think back, there have been times when I was much younger and a group of my friends would be together, and sometimes we'd be at somebody's house and say, oh, it's time to get ready for church. Oh, wow, we're having such a good time here. Why don't we just listen to a sermon tape? And, you know, that happens sometimes. But you know what? Listening to the sermon isn't the same as a holy convocation. It's important that we come together and I'll say when we're able, we have a number of people that are not with us today because they're sick. And if you're sick, stay home. You know, I don't want to discourage anybody. I don't want you to say, well, I'll have fire come out of the altar and strike me dead if I don't go to church services. You know, there are times and reasons to not come together. If you're sick, if you're weak, if you're taking care of someone who's sick, we understand those things.

But if you're thinking, oh, man, my pajamas are so comfortable and I could sit here and just log on the computer, that's not a good reason. We should come together and be together. And as I said, I think we pretty much do that. That's our intention. But it's worth stopping and reminding ourselves.

Make a difference between the holy and the profane. Don't stay home for convenience sake. You know, if you can't gather with God's people for a legitimate reason, that's a good reason. And a legitimate reason is not to give them a virus that's going to make them sick, but it's not because your jammies are just so comfy and you've got a really good high-def screen. I don't want to belabor the point. I just thought it was a good thing to insert. But we could ask, is that it? Don't work. Go to church. And I said, say go to church services, because we are the church, but you go to be with the people that are the church. Is there anything more? Well, you might remember, and I was remembering because I wrote it in my notes, a while back I gave a sermon on keeping the spirit of the law. Maybe the spirit of the law would help us to look a little deeper, looking for God's original intent. And maybe there's something more than just these minimum. Is there a section of Scripture that gives us some idea of things that are a little bit deeper for how to keep the Sabbath? I really figured I'd have people nodding here. Let's go to Isaiah 58. I know a lot of you were thinking this. Isaiah 58 will begin in verse 13.

Here's a section, and once again it's a place where we have the words it's written as God speaking in first person. And he spends most of this place discussing fasting. And fasting is an important thing to draw close to God, but I don't enjoy doing it, and you don't enjoy me hearing me talk about it, which is good. So we'll talk about keeping the Sabbath instead, which begins in verse 13.

Here, and I think this is getting to more of the spirit of the law. If you turn your foot away from the Sabbath, that is, don't trample on the Sabbath. It's figurative language. You can't put your foot on time. You say, don't trample on it as though it were something unholy. From doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight. Now that's important. Calling the Sabbath a delight, because we just read, from doing your pleasure. We're going to talk a little bit more about that, because it doesn't mean you can't do anything that's pleasurable, because then how would it be a delight? So let's be clear, it's not that the Sabbath has to be a somber day, that we're uncomfortable when you wear your wool underwear or something like that, because that just popped into my head. But you know, the Sabbath has to be a delight, but a delight in a special way.

Call the Sabbath a delight, a holy day of the eternal and honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasures, nor speaking your own words. Now how might we do that? This passage gives these three things. Not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasures, not speaking your own words. When we're doing those things, then God will bless us. As a matter of fact, I didn't read the next verse. Then you shall delight in the eternal, and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. You'll enjoy these wonderful blessings. And I wonder, it's figurative poetic language. I don't think it means he's going to put us on a mountaintop. But have you been on a high hill and looked out and had that just uplifting feeling? I think that's kind of what he means. When you're keeping the Sabbath well, you have that uplifting feeling, sort of the way I had when I walked out this morning and saw the sun shine and went, ah, this is nice. It's a Sabbath. It's beautiful. So let's discuss some of these three things one at a time. The first one is your ways. Now, that could seem confusing, but I'm pretty certain that it's talking about our normal occupation. The things you normally do on other days, especially to take care of yourself and earn a living. That can include your job. The things that you do to feed, clothe, and take care of yourself and your family. It doesn't necessarily mean paid employment, because there are a lot of things we have to do, especially, you know, a stay-at-home mother and housewife is certainly working, and it could include things like housework, homework, gardening, yard work, fixing your car. And naturally, this overlaps quite a bit with the basic command of do not work. But the spirit of the law comes into play here, because your work doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, does it? And as far as working a job goes, things are a lot different now than when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. There are a lot of occupations now that probably would not have been called work several thousand years ago, or even a couple hundred years ago, when most people did manual labor. You know, if we only look at the letter of the law, we could say, well, typing on a computer, that's not working, I'm just sitting here. Picking up a phone and talking on it doesn't work. You know, how much work is it to sit behind the wheel of a car or a truck? You know, a night watchman. I think Mr. Call still does that sometimes. There's not a lot of heavy labor, as far as I know. He's not here to correct me, but you know, you could say, all these things aren't work. Or, on the other hand, you could look at it and say, well, if I don't get paid for it, it's not work.

But, then again, things like doing your laundry, mowing the lawn, aren't those work? I had that, and I don't think I mentioned this earlier, Sue went down to Visitor Folks for a couple of days this week, and I had the occasion, since my office is right next to the laundry room, I thought I'd do some laundry. And so I did some of that, and I was folding towels, and it occurred to me, I wonder if somebody's calculated how many calories you burn, because it's an active thing. That just went through my mind, and I think I was thinking of the sermon. I don't know how much it is, but even if you don't get paid for it, I think it's part of doing your ways. It's more profane than holy.

To really keep the Sabbath, we need to distinguish between the holy and the not holy. Not doing your ways, I think, is following the spirit of the law. What about your pleasure?

We mentioned earlier, I don't think that means to not do anything that's enjoyable. It wouldn't be a day of delight if we were fasting and sitting and being totally bored.

But I think it means the Sabbath isn't the day for the leisure activities that we enjoy freely at other times. And I don't think it takes a lot of work to think of these things, especially as we're guided by God's Spirit. Our pleasures might include hunting and fishing. I know those are popular in the rural areas around here. Watching our favorite TV shows or movies, probably more our pleasures. Playing softball or basketball. You know, working out. Jogging. It's funny, some people consider that work or torture, but it's something I do for enjoyment. But I don't do it on the Sabbath. That's finding my pleasure. And I've got a note. Despite what some people said nearly 20 years ago, I think playing golf fits in this category of doing your pleasures. And, I don't see that as something we do on the Sabbath. I'm glad some people chuckled at that. You remember. I had this memory also of early on when I was younger, I had a really good friend that I grew up with in my neighborhood, lived around the corner from me. And my family came into the church and his was not called. But every now and then we'd get together and spend time.

I remember once he came over to my house and he wanted to ride minibikes. And that was, you know, our pleasure. I loved riding. And I said, oh, it's the Sabbath. Don't ride minibikes on the Sabbath. He was kind of put out by that. He said, what doesn't say in the Bible, you can't ride your minibike? And we went back and forth. So finally I got an ink pen and I wrote it in my Bible. Do not ride minibike. And that didn't convince him, I'll say. But I'm glad I think my heart was in the right place. I figured if the letter of the law didn't match the spirit at that point, I thought I'd just change the letter. We don't do that. But it's not hard for us to think about how engaging in certain pastimes perhaps are not keeping the Sabbath holy. As I said, they're profane, not wicked or evil. They're fine, good things, when they're not on holy time.

Now, the last category is something that could really could cause some confusion. What about your words? Now, does that mean we're supposed to be silent? If so, I'm already in big trouble because I've been talking. And a lot of you are in trouble. You spend a lot of time talking. Or are we supposed to use only other people's words? Maybe only quoting from fine literature or quoting words from the Bible. Well, I mean, that quickly becomes evident that that's kind of silly. There's a principle, though, that can help us understand that. If you'll turn to Matthew 12, Matthew 12, 34, this will be a reminder because this came up during the Bible studies this week. It wasn't intentional for it to overlap, but it's always good to review certain scriptures. Matthew 12, 34, of course, is as Jesus was having a discussion with the Pharisees, it was a heated discussion because as we begin this verse, he calls him a bunch of snakes. He said, you brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Ah, that's a clever principle. And of course, he's not talking about the muscle that pumps the blood, but out of the heart means the mind, our inmost being. And out of that comes our words. So in some ways, understanding that will make it both easier and harder to control not speaking our words. Let's think this through. We think and we talk about mostly the stuff that we do all during the week, you know, our ways and our pleasures. We think about and we talk about our jobs and our activities and our pastimes, and that's natural. But that means following the spirit of God's law. Well, if God wants us to take the day off from work and the day off from our normal leisure activities, he also wants us to take the day off from thinking about those things.

Don't let that be your focus. And I think about thinking of work. If you work in an office and you've been going at it, you might shut off your computer and go home. But God says, don't keep running it through your mind trying to solve that problem. Get it out of your mind. Say your garden is your delight. He doesn't want you to spend the Sabbath thinking of how you're going to arrange the garden next spring when planting time comes. You know, I'll have some potatoes here and a little corn and I'll plant the marigolds around to keep the rabbits away. That doesn't work anyways, but at least it never has for me. Or don't think about how you're going to arrange your schedule, which job you're going to do on which day. And I'm not saying this is easy. There are some other things I mentioned. If you're a college football or basketball fan, which I tend to be, although college football not so much because they always play on Saturdays. But the intent of this is, don't just refrain from going to the stadium and watching the game. Try to stop thinking about what the score is. You know, don't be thinking, oh, I wonder how many turnovers the defense has had. Or was my favorite player able to start this week because I know he had that injury and, you know, and maybe I can pull out my smartphone and check the score.

You know, God would prefer, he said, don't be thinking, speaking your words, thinking about those things. Put it out of your mind for a day. Now, does God condemn us if that ever crosses our mind? Well, if so, we've probably all been condemned because, of course, things will come into your mind, but don't dwell on it. We're all an intelligent, I'm gonna say, should I say we are intelligent life forms or we are one, well, we're not animals with just instinct. We can control our thinking. We can direct our thoughts to other areas. And, of course, there's that old adage, how do you get the air out of a glass? And I remember the first time I heard that presented and I was saying, well, you could put a rubber lid on it and get a suction pump and work really hard and I wonder if the glass would hold up or break. And then when I heard they say, well, all you do is you pour in water.

Yeah. And the air is out. So I didn't plan that through very well.

Well, I thought about it in Athens only had one glass, so I just talked about it.

But, yeah, if you put something else in, it pushes the thing you want out. So if we're going by our thinking, well, what do we want to have in our mind on the Sabbath? The Sabbath is a day where we can spend time with Bible study, with prayer, meditation. Meditation is always the one, or I shouldn't say always, but it's often the spiritual thing where people say, oh, how do I do that? I don't have time for meditation. Well, yes, you do. God gave you the Sabbath day, so you'd have some time. Now, you might be like me. It's hard for me to sit down and say, now I'm going to think.

Because I've got that nervous behavior. It was on my mom's side of the family. My uncles could not sit still, and my son is the same way. So I'll go out and take a walk. And it seems like when I'm walking, I can really think. And sometimes I'll pray while I'm walking, and the Sabbath day is great for that. I'm not out walking for exercise. I'm doing it to put the right things in. The Sabbath is a day when you could read some materials you might not read other days.

I've got a book my father-in-law gave me called The Privileged Planet. And there are others I've read, but this one I loved. It's all about how when God created the solar system in the universe, he balanced things exactly right.

And it talks about how the earth is just the right distance from the sun. You know, if we're any closer, we'd all burn up. If we were further, we'd all freeze. And the sun is just the right distance from the center of the galaxy. And you're going, wow, that's amazing! You know, so you can read about God's creation, or you can read fine poetry.

I mean, it doesn't... you can read the Bible, and certainly that's a good thing. And the church produces literature that's good for us to fill our minds with. But it's also that, as I said, there are things you can read other times. I like to read history and biography and be inspired by those stories.

Now, I'll mention this. There was a time in my life when I purposely did not do that on the Sabbath, though. When I was a grad student, it was my job to read history and biography. I loved it, but I'd been doing that all week. So on the Sabbath, I said, I'm not going to read that. I read Stephen Hawking's book on physics instead, and that helped me to learn about God's way.

Now that it's not my job, my job is reading the Bible all the time, I don't do a whole lot of heavy Bible study on Friday nights, because it's my job. And so I'm currently working my way through Winston Churchill's history of World War II. And that's fun, because not only is it history, but Churchill had a way with words. There's sometimes where I just get excited, I want to go, you know, fight the Germans or something, which, well, I don't get that carried away.

But I hope you see what I mean. There are other, we don't have to worry about being able to occupy our minds on the Sabbath. If we think about not what do we have to not do, but look at the opportunities. And that's what I wanted to focus on. Oh, well, yeah. Before I move on, I did want to mention, of course, it's a time for us to spend time with our families, and that's a great thing that we can do. It's amazing when people are employed and busy, sometimes they don't have that much time to sit and have a conversation.

But when the Sabbath comes around, hopefully most of us can. I mentioned this morning, I hope it's not giving anything away. Last night, Sue and Connor and I spent a fair bit of time sitting on our bed talking about trucks, because Connor always wants to do that. Let's sit in the dark and talk about trucks.

It's interesting, the conversation goes over the same, but, you know, we had time. I didn't have to say, oh, there's a show coming on TV I want to watch. No, it was the Sabbath. We could just sit there. We can spend time with others in the body of Christ. As I said, we're holy people and we should spend time together. We need time with each other. That's an important thing.

Now there, we might have some concern, because when you see someone you haven't seen in a week, the natural thing you're going to say is, how have you been? What are you up to? And then you start talking about the things you've been doing. I don't think that's wrong or bad, but you don't want to spend that as you make that your only topic of conversation. Move the discussion on, because you can discuss some other important things.

Take this as the opportunity for iron to sharpen iron, not just to discuss how you're going to fix this problem at work. As I said, there's nothing wrong with mentioning, oh, I had this thing at work. Sometimes that leads into an iron sharpening iron discussion. You get on to the higher spiritual level of things, and we can help each other out. And we also discuss the news that's going on and how that relates to our preaching of the gospel and how is prophecy being fulfilled. That's one of my favorite things when I come here. Of course, what's interesting, I was going to say in Columbus, you'd see little gatherings in the tables. Here there's a male gathering and a female gathering.

Different congregations are different, but it's nice you sit down and there's always a good conversation going on. So my goal is, rather than scrutinizing every single word and worry, oh, I might be speaking my own words, just focus on honoring God. And remember, it's the Sabbath. We never want to forget what Jesus told the Pharisees. It's in Mark 2, 27, but we don't need to turn there. That's where he told them the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Now, it wasn't made for man to use for just anything. It was made as holy time for man so that we have a special time that we can have available to us for certain things.

But we want to look for the positive when we consider the opportunities, the things that we can do and focus on that more than delineating a lot of details of things that we can't do.

Now, in the Gospel accounts of Christ's life and work, we can find there are many times he had disputes with the Pharisees because they did focus on the things you could not do. And some of them said, well, you're breaking the Sabbath. And, of course, modern theologians then say, well, Jesus did away with the Sabbath. Well, neither one of those was true. Jesus Christ didn't do away with the Sabbath, but he disagreed with the Pharisees and how they taught that you have to keep the Sabbath. Now, we should understand that the religious people of that time, or religious, how do I want to say, people who thought they were religious, not ones that were called by God, they looked back at their history and they were justly concerned about the Sabbath. They looked and said, part of the reason our nation went into captivity and was conquered was because we broke the Sabbath. The two main sins were idolatry and Sabbath-breaking.

You can see that listed in Nehemiah 13 especially. There's a look back in Israel's history and he pointedly tells them, our forefathers went into captivity because they broke the Sabbath. So, rabbis and teachers said, we got to stop people from breaking the Sabbath. They got together and said, let's make a lot of rules so that people don't get close to the Sabbath. They came up with a list of 39 types of actions that were prohibited. It was an agrarian society, so it had things like reaping and plowing and threshing and winnowing, also working in the home, sifting, kneading, baking.

But that wasn't quite specific enough. Then they studied and they came up with hundreds of even sub-points and it came down to some of the things like, well, you're not allowed to plow and plowing consists of disturbing the dirt, so you can't spit on dusty ground because that might stir up the dirt and that would be plowing. Jesus looked at that and said, you guys are missing the point of the Sabbath. And I know there was one they discussed like tying a knot was considered work. Well, not all knots are bad. They determined that if it's a knot that you can untie with one hand, then it's okay to tie it on the Sabbath. If I can remember, there's a lot of other interesting ones, but they go a long way from God's basic two commands. Don't work. Do come to worship services or from the three guidelines for spiritually keeping the Sabbath. Don't do your own ways. Don't find your own pleasure. Don't be speaking your own words. And one of the reasons I have some of those specific examples, when I was working on this, I went through to look at some of our old Good News magazine articles. And when a lot of people were newer in the church, there were several articles devoted to explaining what the Sabbath is to people who had no idea. And they got into some specific questions, you know, what about cooking and washing dishes? What is the Sabbath day's journey? What about taking care of livestock? You know, just what is an ox in the ditch? I thought that sounds almost like one of our old booklets. Just what do you mean, ox in the ditch? Sorry, no, well, I thought that was funny. But it was a few weeks ago I realized, you know, and we use that as a phrase, usually referring to something that's not a literal ox in a ditch. I was thinking a few weeks ago, I was talking to Forrest Shoemaker, who most of you know has cattle, and he was describing a situation that came up, and I had to say, that's the closest thing to a literal ox in a ditch on the Sabbath I've ever heard of. So sometimes it comes up, and you do have to go save your ox or your cow. What I'm getting at is many of us have been around a long time and have heard the explanations for these specific questions, and if some of you want to discuss any of those, I'll be glad to talk to you. But I'll mention also, look around. You can look at many faces here of people who have waded through those things and would probably give as good an explanation as I would. My purpose today was not to rehearse answers to all those questions. My main goal is to remind us, remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy. Think of the spirit of the law.

If we pray for guidance, if we study God's Word, and if we spend our time thinking more about how to honor God than to figure out what we can get away with, I think we'll do well. And as I said, I don't see a group of people that are trying to figure out what you can get away with. No, I want to remind us, though, that sometimes we get a little bit lax. Sometimes we forget that Friday is sometimes called in Scripture the Preparation Day. And as a good illustration, God, when He was leading ancient Israel out, He had to feed them miraculously, so He sent them manna six days a week. But not on the seventh day. And He told them, on the sixth day, gather twice as much. Now, they couldn't gather twice as much any other day, because when they tried it, it bred worms and it stank, and they got mad at each other. But it's interesting, He didn't say, gather as much as you need, plus one seventh more. He told them, on the sixth day, gather twice as much. So there are some ways, I think the idea of preparing for the Sabbath on Friday is reminding us the Sabbath is coming. It's special. And it's good for us to remind ourselves, help remind others. That's something Sue and I have been trying to remember to tell Connor. Yesterday afternoon, I was saying, the Sabbath is coming. The sun's going to go down, it'll be the Sabbath. It's a special time. And we can come, you know, tomorrow we're going to go to church services, which He always answers, I can play with Justin's tractors. And we're trying to remind Him that playing with Justin is more important than with his tractors. But we're, you know, as I said, but it's good to learn it's a special time. Likewise, you know, we want to remember to spiritually prepare.

Now there's something I thought I'd also mention, and it's something that comes up not too much, but it's a reminder to me that when we do come here, we're with God's holy people. We have worship services that we ask God to be present, so our services are holy. We need to, all of us men who come up here, need to think about how we're conducting ourselves. And I say that to me, because every now and then I have to stop and say, Frank, you know, maybe you're joking a little too much, or you're being a little too much off the cuff when you're giving announcements. You know, men, I ask all of you to join me to think again. Remember, this is holy time. Now, it's holy time and it's solemn, but I also remember the story of David when he brought the Ark of the Covenant in, and he danced for all his might. So I want it to be a joyous time. So I don't say I should never crack a joke or we have fun, but we should treat it as something holy and show proper respect to each other as God's people, and of course, to God, whom we're here to worship. Now, there's that balance. The main idea I want to leave us with is, I'm wrapping up, God is holy. He wants us to be holy. We're required to discern between what is holy and what is not.

And of course, that includes this time, this holy time that makes up the Sabbath. He made the Sabbath holy, and we need to keep it holy. Now, there are a lot of details that we might consider in how to do this. As human beings, we tend to complicate things. It doesn't have to be that complicated.

We just need to recognize and remember that the time is holy. It's a day that we should devote to seeking God in His ways, His thoughts, His words. When we do that, we'll find that it's not hard to keep the Sabbath holy. So having said that, for the hour or so that's left of it, I'll say, brethren, have a wonderful rest of the Sabbath.