Keeping the Sabbath Holy

You know, one thing that God has wanted from the time that he created man, from the time he even thought about man, was that he wanted man to receive eternal life. When he created Adam and Eve, he created them with a tremendous purpose in mind, and he wanted them to yield to him. He wanted to be able to put his Holy Spirit into them. He wanted them to have eternal life and achieve the potential that he had in mind. A potential that he had when he created them is the same purpose of what he has in mind for you and me as we sit here today. And it's a struggle. Adam and Eve learned pretty early on that it's a struggle to follow God's way of life. And there are forces that are out there, Satan, of course, looking to see how he can upend us, how he can distract us, how he can take us away from what God's will is. And God, through the course of time, has given us tools to develop a relationship with him, because what he wants is to have a relationship with you and me. He wants us to grow closer and closer to him. He wants us to see the wisdom of his way of life. He wants us to follow his way of life. He wants us to become less and less like we are naturally and more and more like he is, and how like Jesus Christ is, and how he demonstrated that way of life when he was on earth. But it's a struggle. But God does give us tools. I know Mr. Wentz has given a couple sermons, very good sermons, on prayer, one of the tools that we would use to stay close to God. And if we never pray to God, if we never talk to him, we won't develop that relationship. He gives us his word, the Bible, that he's given us. And he tells us, study it, divide it, labor in it, understand it, grow in it, let it convict you, let it cut you to the heart, let it direct you, let it chastise you, let it instruct you, follow that tool and use it.

He gives us a tool of meditation because we can't just read something. Sometimes we just have to stop and think about what it is and how it all fits together, just like David did. And the more he understood and the more he meditated on God's law, the more appreciative he was of it, and he could see the wisdom in it. And he gives us a tool of fasting, something we don't like to hear about. But you know, when we fast in exactly the right way that God wants us to, it's a tremendous tool that opens our minds and that helps us to understand. And God gives us, God through his Holy Spirit will remove those yolks that so many times hold us back. We want to talk about another tool today, another tool that God gives us that we often don't think of as a tool, and it's even more than a tool because, you know, we pray. God leaves it to us to determine what to pray. He doesn't tell us, get up in the morning and pray from 6 to 6 30 every morning. That's my commandment. He doesn't say, get up and study, and every morning from 7 to 7 30 before you go to work, study.

But this tool, he does tell us, and he does make sure that we are using a tool to stay close to him and draw closer to him. And we're all keeping or using that tool right now. That tool that I'm talking about is the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day. Let's turn back to Exodus 20. Exodus 20.

It's more than a tool. It's an actual command of God. Time that he sets aside for us, his people, who follow him, to be with him. No place else we're supposed to be. Nowhere else than other things that should take us away from where we're to be on this time that he has set aside for his people to be where he wants us to be. Exodus 20, verse 8. The longer the more words describing the Sabbath day here in Exodus 20 and also in Deuteronomy 5, where God talks about it, says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

One of the 10 commandments. Stop for a moment. Think about that word, holy. You know, holy is a word that we've heard all of our lives, no matter how long we've been in the church before we ever were in the church, if you will. We heard the word holy. And sometimes when we hear words over and over and over again, they can kind of lose their meaning. They just, you know, roll off our tongues. We just say it, oh, that's holy. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. But what are some of the things that God said were holy? Holy, of course, means separate, set apart, hold in reverence something pertaining to God. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Well, Paul said that the law, the law is holy and just and good. God is in that law. He's the one who prescribed it. He's the one who prescribed it at the beginning of time. It was there for Adam and Eve. It was there for Old Testament Israel. It's there for us today. It'll be there for the people during the time of Jesus Christ's reign on earth. Holy, just and good. God is in that law. It is special. It is key. It is truth. It is there for us to pay attention to and not to just take ever common because it is holy. We can talk about the tithes of God. Leviticus 27, it tells us, the tithes of God are holy. They're for His. They're for Him. They're not ours. He tells us that He gives us things and He tells us, those tithes are holy. And as we work with those tithes at the home office, we realize they're holy and they're for God's will and His will to be done with those. We should always in our lives be continually seeking that.

You know, we can talk about holy matrimony. Marriage is holy, right? God ordained it. And there's things we learn. The world has trampled all over marriage. And so the meaning of it and the purpose of it has been obscured from mankind as they've just played with it and forgotten about what God said in order back at the time that He created mankind.

Now we can talk about holy and we realize how important those things are. But even in Exodus, even in Exodus, you know, when we go back and as we are preparing for Passover, we begin thinking about some of the things in the Old Testament, the parallels they have for us today. Remember the story of Moses and how he was taken out of Egypt and he lived in Midian for 40 years. God trained him and then God appeared to him in a burning bush. Remember that? Moses saw the burning bush and it was burning and it never burned up. And Moses went to see this vision that God told him, Moses, take your sandals off. You're standing on holy ground.

Get your shoes off, Moses. This is my ground. You're in my presence now. You take your feet off and you appear before me on this holy ground. Time, a place that God was there. Don't trample on my ground, Moses. It's his holy ground you're in. And God would say of the Sabbath day, you keep it holy. This is holy time. It's not just another 24-hour period. It's God's time, time that he set up back at the beginning of creation when he, at the end of six days of work, stopped what he was doing. And he blessed the Sabbath day. The only day he blessed and he said, this time, this time is blessed. And he sanctified it and he set it apart and he set it apart for a very good reason. He set it apart for his people, for you and me. It's a time that we, if we keep it well, we will learn what God is about. If we trample on it, if we put our own feet on it, if we put our shoes on and step all over it, then we won't be pleasing God at all. So here in verse 8 he says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It's reverent. It's separate. It's special. It's God's time. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. You have all that time to go to work, go to school, do your homework, play your video games, watch TV, watch movies. Do all those things that you want to do, those six days of the week, six days of the week. But when we come to holy time, God's holy time, there's a circle drawn around the Sabbath day. And we do something different on the Sabbath day than we do the other six days of the week. Six days you shall wave labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Eternal, your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your cattle nor your stranger who is within your gates.

Get the picture of what God is showing there. Your household. If you follow God and if you serve God, your household is separate on those days. That day is not a day as normal. There's not people just coming and going like normal. There isn't business as usual as normal. It's more than just not working on that day. Your house is at rest. It is ceasing from all the activities of the other days of the week. It's not just, I don't go to work on the seventh day. It's a whole different atmosphere on the seventh day that God is looking for. Not just sleeping later. Not just not doing, but doing something and making use of the Sabbath day because He gave it and He set aside that 24 hour period for us to learn, for us to grow, for us to get closer to Him. The Sabbath day pictures a whole lot of things. Back on that first Sabbath day when He created it at the time of creation, the world was in perfect harmony. Adam and Eve, creation and God were all at peace with one another. As we look forward to the millennium, the time of rest from this world and all the work and labor of it, when Jesus Christ is on earth and the world will be at peace with one another. Creation and God and mankind in harmony again. Not to discord and not to disconnect that we have so often today. And on the Sabbath day, God says, you be separate. You have a different atmosphere in your house on that day. No strangers coming in, no repairs getting done, no lawns getting mowed. You are ready for a Sabbath day and you are ready for 24 hours with God.

Doing things that God says in His holy time. Keeping it and learning to keep it, and it's a lifelong process. Learning to keep it the way He said to keep holy time. Not just doing the lip service. Not just not doing a few things, but learning, learning the benefits of the Sabbath. Learning what God wanted us to derive from the Sabbath. Using that tool to understand Him more, to follow Him more closely, to get a better vision of what it is He's working for us during a whole 24 hour period. A whole 24 hour period. Verse 11, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and the rest of the Sabbath day. Therefore He blessed the Sabbath day and He hallowed it. He set it apart. And He made it a perpetual covenant.

So important to God was this 24 hour period, this time reserved for Him. He made it a commandment. He blessed it. And He spoke about it often. When Israel was coming out of Egypt, they had lost. They had lost the way of God. They had lost the things that God had wanted them to do. The things that would draw us closer to God, the tools that would help us to understand Him more. And He spent time rehearsing with them what it would do and of the things that He taught them before He ever gave the 10th commandments at Sinai. He taught them again about this Sabbath day. It was so important to Him, such a key to His people, that He was willing to give them or to talk about it even then. Let's go back to Exodus 31. Exodus 31, verse 13. After He gives the 10 commandments, after He's working with the people, they're out in the desert. God has given them manna. He's given them water. He's given them meat. He's showing them that He can provide anything they need and all they need. They just need to trust in Him. He talks about the Sabbath days again. Verse 13 of Exodus 31, He says, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Surely, my Sabbath, you shall keep. For it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. You keep the Sabbath day. Don't count it common. Don't overlook it. Don't take it for granted. Keep it throughout your generations. You shall keep the Sabbath. For it is holy to you. It's holy time. It's holy ground. It's God's time. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death. Profanes it. Anyone who profanes the Sabbath day will be put to death.

It's that important to God. For whoever does any work on it, that person will be cut off from among his people. Work will be done for six days, but the Sabbath is the Sabbath of rest, holy to God. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day will surely be put to death. Therefore, the children of Israel, the physical people back then, the spiritual people of God today. Therefore, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It's the sign between me and the children of Israel forever. Do you remember forever? Hebrew, Olam, A-O-L-A-M. As long as there's a heaven and earth, for in six days God made the heavens and earth, but on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.

On the Sabbath day, when we cease from our labors, just like God ceased from the work of the first six days, when we go into the Sabbath day and when we keep it, do we come out of it feeling refreshed? Do we feel alive again? Do we feel inspired again? Do we feel closer to God again?

Or do we, as sunset draws near, just think, one more hour, and I can go back to doing the things that I want to do.

How is it to put away everything that you do and give the time to God and do what He wants you to do on the Sabbath day? I have to look at myself and I have to, and we can all ask ourselves, is the Sabbath, are we refreshed when the Sabbath is done? Do we feel inspired? Do we feel encouraged? Do we feel closer to God? Are we ready to go back to work in the days, the six days that are going to follow, and we do the things that we do as part of our lives? If we do, we may be keeping the Sabbath well. We can all improve. If we don't, then we may have some things that we need to look at. Look it over at Ezekiel 20. Ezekiel 20, when God speaks of the importance of the Sabbath day. To the people of Israel back then, and He made it crystal clear to them, this is something that's important to Him, even ancient Israel. After He said in Exodus 31 about, you know, if anyone profanes the Sabbath day, they should be put to death. And then back in Numbers 15, when they found someone gathering fixed on the Sabbath day, they knew He shouldn't be doing that. He was doing something that He wasn't supposed to be doing on the Sabbath day. And you remember the children of Israel? They brought them in, and they didn't know what to do. Well, God, what did we do with Him? God said, He must be put to death. He profaned the Sabbath day.

None of us want to profane the Sabbath day. None of us want to have the sentence that God would say us if we are profaning Sabbath day. Israel and Judah, they profaned God's Sabbath, the Ezekiel 20 here at the other end of Israel and Judah's history. We saw them in Exodus when they came out of Egypt. We see them several hundred years later. They've just disregarded everything that God had said. And God is leading them into captivity. Ezekiel 20 and verse 12, Moreover, He said, I gave them my Sabbath to be a sign between them and me, 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 will live by them. And they greatly defiled my Sabbath. I don't know how they did that.

Maybe they just disregarded the Sabbath. Maybe they did stop working. But they defiled God's Sabbath. They didn't keep it holy the way that He said to keep it holy. And He said that He would pour His fury out on them. On verse 16, He says it again, they despised my judgments. They didn't walk in my statutes. They profaned my Sabbath, for their heart went after their idols.

Through this chapter, God talks about idolatry. They let other gods and other things be more important to them than what God's will was. And they profaned my Sabbaths. They didn't pay attention to my Sabbath. They didn't use that tool. They didn't discipline themselves to follow me in the way that God wanted them to follow Him. On verse 21, notwithstanding the children rebelled against me, they didn't walk in my statutes. They were not careful to observe my judgments, which if a man does, you will live by them. But they profaned my Sabbaths. And I said I would pour my fury out on them. Could we? Could we be profaning God's Sabbath? Could we be in danger of the same thing that the Israelites did and that Judah did? We're all sitting here.

And certainly sitting in God's command and assembly is part of keeping the Sabbath, but that's not the only part. God didn't say for this two, three, four hour period, He said there's a twenty-four hour period. That's holy. Twenty-four hours that you carve out of your week. That is holy time. No longer yours. It belongs to God. And in that day, God resides. In that day that God blessed, He expects us to learn some things and He expects us to discipline ourselves to observe that day the way that He wants it done. How do we do that? You know, sometimes new people who understand the Sabbath will call. More than once I've been asked, what do you do for all twenty-four hours? What do you do if you don't work, if you don't go out and do something in the yard, if you don't do this or that or whatever, if you don't watch TV, if you don't watch movies, what do you do for twenty-four hours? And it can be daunting, can it? Because the other six days of the week, our schedules are pretty full. We go to school, we go to work, we come home, we prepare dinner, we eat dinner, we watch the news, we turn the TV on, we play our video games, we play with our phones, we do whatever it takes, and all of a sudden the day is full and we think, wow, where's the time for prayer? Where's the time for study? Wow, I'm really busy, but I've got all these other little things going on.

That doesn't happen on the Sabbath day, does it? On the Sabbath day, you've got 24 hours where you don't work, where you don't do the things you do on the other six days of the week. All those things are for six days of the week, but for the seventh day you have 24 hours to not do any of those things that you do on the other six days of the week. 24 hours for God, 24 hours for Him to fill up the time, 24 hours for you to focus on what He wants, what He is, who He is, what His plan is. Taking the time to do the number of things that God wants because He blessed the Sabbath day. He gave us this time. He gave us a tool and said, keep that Sabbath holy. Keep it separate. Keep it, and don't propane it. Understand it and use the time and pay attention to the time. So what do we do? What do we do with the Sabbath day? One thing we all know, we already read it in Ezekiel 20, we don't work. On the seventh day we don't do our daily jobs. We don't go to the office, we don't go to school, we don't do the things that we do those other six days of the week. We have that day off.

That's clear. We don't have to talk about that. Everyone knows we don't work on the Sabbath day. God made that crystal clear. Now there's more to work than just going to the office. There's more to work than just going to school. There's other things that we do during the week too that we don't do on the Sabbath. That includes all the work around the house. We don't do any of the things that we might have servants do, that we might do ourselves. We don't mow the lawn. We don't do the laundry. We don't take the time to do whatever it is and think, oh, this is some free time to do that? Nope. That's not for that day. That's for another day. Back in Nehemiah.

I want to look at Nehemiah 13 here for a moment because that often comes up in conversations about the Sabbath day. But Nehemiah 13 does tell us one of the things we simply do not do on the Sabbath day.

It may be different than what some people think, but let's just read what happened in Nehemiah 13. This is the time when Judah was going back to build the temple, rebuild the second temple, rebuild the wall. Nehemiah was over there and he began to see as he was not only rebuilding the temple, but having the people rebuild their lives in service to God. They're going to build the temple. They should be living the way that God wants to. And in Nehemiah 13 verse 15, he sees something happening that he hadn't seen before because the people had allowed something to crowd in to the Sabbath day. Apparently, they didn't think much of it because it wasn't like work to them. Nehemiah 13 verse 15, In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. Now, it seems crystal clear as you read that, that's wrong, right? We never do that, but here they were in Jerusalem building God's temple and this was happening on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. They were setting up Walmart right there on the Sabbath day. They were setting up Publix right there on the Sabbath day. They were bringing in the things and the people were going out there and thinking, oh, this isn't hard work. All we can do, they're bringing them to us. How difficult is this? We'll go out and buy our fish. We'll go out and buy our wine. We'll go out and do these things. Nehemiah makes it crystal clear it isn't done on the Sabbath day. Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah and in Jerusalem. And I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them, what evil thing is this that you do by which you profane the Sabbath day? What has gotten into your mind that you would think that that would be an okay thing to do? That you would bring in and set up a place of commerce and that you would go out and you would do your shopping on the Sabbath day? Maybe it's not the thing that you see as work, but you don't do commerce on the Sabbath day.

You don't go out and you do your things. That's what you do in preparation for the Sabbath day. That's what you do the other six days of the week, but you don't do that on the Sabbath day.

On the Sabbath day, it is a time that's holy to God, not a time for our every other day activities or even allowing those things to come in and weave into our lives because I don't believe that one day these people just happen to show up. I believe that little by little things creep into the Sabbath day and all of a sudden we're thinking, well, at least we're not going to work, at least we're not going to school, so it must be okay. No. What Nehemiah saw here was a Sabbath that had been profaned, and we have to be very judicious with the time that God gives us, very judicious, very careful with the time that God gives us. We don't start reasoning among ourselves, thinking, oh, that's okay. That's something we don't have time to do during the other six days of the week, so we'll just let that be on the Sabbath day. If it's not of God, it doesn't belong on the Sabbath day.

It's holy time. Take your feet, take your sandals off, Moses, and don't trample on my holy ground. And God would say to us, don't you trample on my Sabbath day. Don't you profane my Sabbath day. Don't you let other things crowd into the Sabbath day. This is a time for me and you to be together, a time for you to focus on what's important in life and what your calling is, a time to do extra study and to focus on the things of God, not the things we just don't have time to do during the week sometimes. I'm going to leave it at that. The rest of the chapters, you know, by 13 might be a subject for another conversation or another sermon or part of it. But there's things that we clearly don't do on the Sabbath day. We don't work. We don't do commerce.

What do we do to get ready for the Sabbath day? Let's go back to Ezekiel 16, because back before God ever gave the 10 commandments, He began to teach Israel about this all-important tool and relationship, relationship identifier between Him and His people. Next to the 16, God had showed Israel that He could provide for them. There He was providing manna for them, and He taught them. Every morning the manna is going to be there. Go out and pick up the manna, prepare what you need for yourself that day. Don't save it to the next day. If you do, it'll just stink. It'll be rotten. Of course, people disregarded God, did it anyway. They learned what God says is exactly what He means. But then on the 6th day, He had some special instructions to them regarding this manna that God was providing for them. 1-23, 16-23. Moses, speaking to them, He says, This is what the Eternal has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Eternal. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning. And they did what Moses said. He was teaching them a very important concept about the Sabbath day. He was teaching them, You get ready for it. Now, some people disregarded again and thought, Yeah, I'm not going to do that on that Friday. I'm going to go ahead. It'll be out there. It's not that much work to go out and gather the manna. Some people did it and found out there is no manna today. We're going hungry. We should have done what God said, and we should have prepared for the Sabbath day. There's this important concept. When we prepare for something, it shows how important it is to us, doesn't it? You know, think about the things that you prepare for.

You know, we go away to the Feast of Tabernacles. There's trips that have to be planned and things like that, and lodging that has to be. Lodging that has to be booked, airfares that have to be booked and things like that. You certainly don't wait until the day you're leaving to start planning all that stuff, do you? And if you're going on a trip, it doesn't even have to be the Feast of Tabernacles. You prepare for it. You just don't wake up one morning and say, we're going to run over to Europe for a couple weeks. It's kind of silly, isn't it? And the thing is, you know, as you prepare for things, it really enhances that trip, doesn't it? I used to say that planning and planning for a trip, planning where you're going to go, even if it's something as mundane, is going from here to Cincinnati. If you prepare for it, the anticipation rises, and it becomes a better experience. God says, prepare for the Sabbath day. Don't just at 6.31 next Friday night think, oops, the Sabbath is here. Haven't thought about it since I was there at Sabbath services last week. Think about it. Prepare it. God says this is a blessing. This is something for His people. Holy time that He's given us. And He says, I've blessed this day. This is a sign. You be between you and me. If you keep this day holy, I will bless you.

If you profane this day, I'll cut you off.

Pretty sobering things that God says. So, Moses says here, prepare for the Sabbath day. Be thinking about it. We need to be thinking about the Sabbath day more than at 6.30 the night that it starts. We need on that Friday, and sometimes in my letters, in fact often in my letters, I will talk about preparing for the Sabbath day, getting ready for it.

Some people will say, oh, that was for the Old Testament. The day of preparation doesn't make any difference anymore. That was the Old Testament in Israel when they were wandering in the desert. But, you know, when Jesus Christ was on earth, the ladies were doing days of preparation. When we talk about Passover and we talk about night to be much-deserved, we see people preparing for the Sabbath day, don't we? There's a concept that's still there. There's still a Sabbath day that we need to prepare for.

On Fridays, we need to be having our mind on the Sabbath. What are we going to wear? Not that I wake up Saturday morning and say, oh, my shirt isn't the way it needs to be. I needed that shirt to be ironed. I think about it ahead of time so that it's ready to go. I think that the suit that I'm going to wear is clean. I think that the car is full. I think that what we're going to eat is planned out. There's not going to be any kind of conflict or whatever on this Sabbath day that is planned out.

That all those physical things that we're ready for, so when the Sabbath day comes, it's a joy when it enters into it. The meal is already there. The meal is already planned. Maybe you want to plan something because the Sabbath day is an important day of the week. It's God's holy time.

Maybe on Friday night you have a dinner that's special, that the kids enjoy, and that you enjoy. It's different than the rest of the week because it's God's holy time. Maybe you have something planned on that Friday night when sunset is at five thirty and goes all the way and you're up until ten or thirty or eleven at night.

What do I do during all those evening hours? There can be a long time of hours if we're thinking, well, what do we do? We're not watching TV. We're not playing our video games. All the things that we do during the other week to fill our time.

We're not doing it on Sabbath. What do we do? You might want to do a little planning. You might want to do a little bit of studying. You might want to have some things that you plan to talk about. You know, one of the things, and I say one of the great, great, great advantages of being a minister and preparing messages is that you prepare messages. You know, I do my study during the week and sometimes it can be short, but I'll tell you, when I get into studying the Bible and preparing a sermon and going into depth study, it's a fascinating and it's an awesome thing to do.

Sometimes when I get into it, I think I've got to shut the TV off. I don't want to look at the Internet for a while. I just want those hours to be able to meditate on what's going on and to put together the sermon. It's an absolutely enlightening and invigorating experience.

And until I started speaking, I didn't understand that. But you know, on the Sabbath day, you have time to do that. We get up in the morning, we have to go to work by eight o'clock. You might only have time for half an hour of study in the morning. You have time and responsibilities at night, but on the Sabbath, you don't have those two strengths. You can spend an hour, you can spend two hours, you can get immersed in the Word of God.

You can do some of the studies and some of the questions that we try to give out to you. Get into it. Understand it. Let God open your mind. Let God delve into your mind and show you what's in the Bible. There's time for that on the Sabbath day. There may not be the time for you to spend three or four hours in studying.

There may not be the time to spend an hour or two in prayer, where you can just pour out your heart to God about everything that's going on.

But on the Sabbath day, there's that time. If we use the time, if we plan the time, for those of us with children, very important, very important that the Sabbath day is something that we are cognizant of and that we are teaching them, this is holy time. This is blessed time. This is time that God is in, not a time of drudgery, not a time, like it says back in Amos 8.5, where God says of Israel in the future, what about these new moons? Can we just get the new moon celebration over so we can go back to selling our grain? Can the Sabbath day just end so we can go back trading our wheat? If that's the attitude in your mind, if that's the attitude in your children, if that's the attitude, just get the Sabbath day so we can turn our video games back on so we can put the, we can put Netflix back on and entertain ourselves. And we might want to be taking a close look, because I dare say if that's what we're doing, then we're in danger of profaning the Sabbath day. And God holds the Sabbath day, what we do, very near and very dear to His heart, and we should as well. You know, we talk about physical preparation, but we've got to mentally prepare for the Sabbath day as well. Let's go back to Isaiah, Isaiah 58.

Isaiah 58 and verse 13.

You know, keep your fingers there in Isaiah 58. I'm going to turn back to Hebrews 4 before we go there. Hebrews 4.

Hebrews 4 talks about the Sabbath day. And in verse 9, I'll read verse 8. If Joshua had brought ancient Israel into the rest, they wouldn't have afterward have spoken, or God wouldn't have, of another day. There therefore remains a rest of the Sabbath-esmos, the Sabbath, for the people of God, a time that we keep that day holy.

For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his.

But notice what it says in verse 11. Let us therefore be diligent, diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. Let's be diligent.

Let's not just sleep through it. Let's not just look at the Sabbath day and say, if I've done everything I can, I've gotten the day off work, I'm not going to go to work that day, and therefore, that's all I need to do. I don't have to be very diligent to just rest, do you?

I don't have to plan if I'm just going to rest on the Sabbath day and not do anything.

Be diligent. Prepare. Get ready for it. Make sure that you are entering into the rest that God wants you to enter into. Now let's go back to Isaiah 58. Sometimes people think all they need to do is rest and not work. That's not all that God says. He says, remember to keep the time holy. He does say, don't work. Seize from the things you do the other six days of the week, but there's something that you fill your time with, too. Verse 13, if you turn your foot, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, your ideas, what you want to do, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, or doing what you please on my Sabbath day, if you get your foot away from it, then you do instead what God wants you to do. If you step away from doing your pleasure and the things that you want to do, the things that are fun to you, the things that maybe you reason in your mind are okay with God, and if you call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable and shall honor Him. Not doing your own ways, he repeats. Not doing the things that you want to do, doing the things and using the 24-hour period that he gives, the way he says to, nor speaking your own words. I read that phrase about nor speaking your own words, and I have to think about myself. What am I doing on the Sabbath day? What am I talking about on the Sabbath day? The things that I want to talk about? The things that I could talk about the other six days of the week? Or am I talking about the things that God wants to be talked about on that day? Well, we focus on His way, His plan, His calling, that we are refreshed and that we are invigorated and that we aren't profaning the Sabbath, that we truly are turning our foot away from the Sabbath and turning our minds and turning our words and turning the choices that we make and what we do in the evening and before services and when we go home at night before sunset.

Is the day what God would have us do? Or is it mixed with a lot of what we like to do?

Keeping the Sabbath day? God says, prepare. God says, call it a delight. And you know what? Will we keep the Sabbath day correctly? It'll be a delight. We will look forward to it. It'll become a focus of our week. And we will look forward to the time when we can be at rest with God doing His will and enjoying the things of God that He has called us to do that will mark our lives for eternity. God says, 24 hours a week, 24 hours a week, turn your foot away from the Sabbath. Don't speak your words. Speak my words. Don't find your pleasure. Don't do the things. And don't go through the rationale and the reasoning that sometimes leads us astray. Do the things that God said. What can we do? What can we do? What can we plan? What can we do on the Sabbath day? Well, God does give us something to do on the Sabbath day. You know what that is, right? We're all here on the Sabbath day. And He does give a command back in Leviticus 23. Let's go back there. That on His Sabbath day, His 24-hour period, He does expect His people to do something with that Sabbath day. Among the other things of the 24-hour period, Leviticus 23 verse 3, says, 6 days shall work be done, but the 7th day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy—there's that word holy—a holy convocation, a time to come before God, time to come before God and with each other. He doesn't say, if you're well rested, then go ahead and be there. He doesn't give any options on the Sabbath day. If you're going to keep it holy, one thing is an absolute must. You must be there in a holy convocation. Keep the Sabbath holy. Come to the holy convocation. Meet together. Now, you can read it any way you want. You can go through the Bible. And if you ever find an exception in there that says, it's okay with God if we just don't feel like going to the holy convocation on the Sabbath day, then He's okay with that. I was a little tired. I had this come up. I just wasn't ready for the Sabbath day. I didn't take the time to mentally prepare myself that I'm going to be at the Sabbath day unless there's sickness and I know the things that can happen that would prevent us from being here. No way around it. If you don't convene before God in a holy convocation on the Sabbath day, I dare say you are borderline profaning the Sabbath. No way. No two ways about it.

We go back to Hebrews 10. Even in the New Testament, it talks about, as God set aside 24-hour period and thinks that He wants us to do as we develop our relationship with Him, that He expects His people to be together with each other before Him and worshiping Him. Hebrews 10.24. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. There's this good Sabbath activity. Stirring up love, stirring up good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some who say it's not that important.

Of course it's important. If God says it, it's important. We can't rationalize in our mind and say, oh, come on, does God really care if I just miss the Sabbath service here and then? Of course He cares. He wouldn't have said it otherwise. And we're fooling ourselves. We're fooling ourselves if we think we're keeping the Sabbath and we just start a discount. One of the things that He clearly says to do. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. Don't be in danger of defiling the Sabbath. Don't be in danger of neglecting the Sabbath. Don't be in danger of doing the things that God says to do. This one's simple. You don't have to think about it. Sabbath services are scheduled for you. God says, be there. They're scheduled for you. The room is booked. The people are here. Everything's ready for you. You don't have to do anything except hop in the car and be here and mentally prepared, mentally prepared to serve God and hear what He gets to say. No, Jesus Christ kept the Sabbath, and He went to the synagogue every week. Luke 4. You know, He lived His life as an example for us.

And we're told, follow Him. He lived the perfect life. And yet, He was there every week at Sabbath services. Luke 4. Verse 16. He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, if it was the Sabbath day, you could count on the fact that Jesus Christ was going to go to the synagogue. As His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And then He read the book. He read from the Scriptures, just like we read from the Scriptures here in this church and every church of God on to Sabbath day. That was what Jesus Christ did. It was His custom. It was the custom of the New Testament church, too. Some people will say, oh no, Jesus Christ, when He was, He nailed all that to the cross. No, He didn't. He set the Sabbath as a perpetual covenant for people to keep. The New Testament people, the New Testament church, kept the Sabbath day. It was the apostles. Long after Jesus Christ was killed and resurrected, spent time working with them after His resurrection and then ascended into heaven. It was their custom to keep the Sabbath day. Acts 13. Acts 13. Acts 13 and verse 14. Speaking of Paul, verse 13, it says, When they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. When they came, when they were done with their travels, they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. They were out of town. They went to church. After the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them saying, Men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. And then Paul taught. They read the law and prophets. They read scriptures. They gathered together. They did the holy convocation, even in New Testament times, because God has a purpose and there's things we learn by being together and the obedience we learn by being where He says to be.

Jesus Christ kept the Sabbath. He had some issue with the Pharisees.

I'm going to turn you back to Mark. You know, it's one thing about the Sabbath day. If there's one commandment, there's one commandment that has been attacked and maligned and made seem unnecessary of all the ten. That dates back well into history, what commandment is it?

The Sabbath day. The Christian churches, way back when? I don't need to keep the Sabbath day. We'll keep the first day instead. People have attacked the Sabbath day and said you don't need to keep it forever and ever and ever. Why would you think that would be? Why would Satan continually attack the Sabbath day and have people say you don't need to keep it?

Because it is a sign. It is a relationship-builder between God and His people.

And so it's always been there. Even the Jews in Christ's time attacked the Sabbath day in their own way. It wasn't a delight for the Jews to keep the Sabbath day. They labored it down.

They had 600-some regulations. You can't walk this many steps. You can't carry this much. You can't do this. You can't do that. They destroyed the Sabbath day. It became a burden to people. People of the Jews wouldn't say, oh, the Sabbath is a delight. They'd say it's a burden. And that just is, as Christ said, you've destroyed. You've even attacked the Sabbath day. You're not keeping it the way that I said. I didn't expect it to be a burden. I expected it to be a blessing. I expected it to be a relationship-builder. I expected it to be something that when you're done with it, you would say, I can't wait until the next Sabbath day. I wish there were more hours in the day to keep the Sabbath. And so, Christ, as He was on earth, I was turning to Mark 2, but I didn't get there. Mark 2 talked about the Sabbath day. And He kept the Sabbath day. He went to the Sabbath. He went to the synagogue. And He spent more time than just going to the synagogue. Mark 2, verse 23.

It happened that He went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. And as they went, His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. And the Pharisees said, look, they're doing what they shouldn't be doing on the Sabbath. Ah, they were ready to nail Him on it. But the point is, look what Jesus Christ was doing on the Sabbath day. He was walking with the disciples. He was spending some time with them. He was talking with them. They were walking casually through the fields. And, I'm guaranteeing you, they weren't talking about the latest football score, the latest college basketball standings. They were talking about the things pertaining to God. And as they went through, just to enhance their fellowship, you know, they happened to pick up a grain and eat. What do we do on the Sabbath day? It's okay to spend more time with people on the Sabbath day. Christ did. After He went to the synagogue, we don't see Him running home and hiding in His wherever He went. He spent time with people. And so, on the Sabbath day here, we will build things into the Sabbath day. Sometimes we'll have potlucks. Sometimes we'll have Bible studies. Sometimes we'll have little discussion groups afterwards.

Okay, to do that. Talking about the things of God on the Sabbath day. Focusing on the things of God on the Sabbath day. Fellowshipping with one another on the Sabbath day. Not every week do we do that, but once in a while we do. And I have to admit that sometimes I'm surprised that once in a while, when we do potlucks, and once in a while when we do Bible studies on the Sabbath day, how many people just don't bother staying for them? And I find myself thinking, what is it that they need to get home for? The Sabbath is still there for another several hours. What is it that's at home that's so much more important than being together with people, talking about the word of God, and focusing in on it? Now, I understand. I understand there are occasions and things that we would need to do, but I don't know. You might want to just think about that and what we are doing with the Sabbath day and what we think about it and what we think about the time we spend with each other. Jesus Christ enjoyed the time that He sent with the disciples.

I enjoy the time that I spend with all of you. I hope you enjoy the time that you spend with each other. I hope that you're refreshed and I hope that you're encouraged and I hope that you enjoy speaking. And I hope you enjoy the potlots. I hope you enjoy the Bible studies. I hope you enjoy the discussions that we have. I learned something from those discussions just like the home Bible studies. I said, and every time we have one, I learned something that I hadn't thought about before and I go home and I think about it. And it refreshes me and it enlivens me even more to hear what some of the comments are and whatever. Jesus Christ did that. The apostles did that. Down in Mark 3, something else. If you're wondering, how do we fill the Sabbath day? What do we do for these 24 hours? Well, sometimes we provide the opportunities. Chapter 3 says in chapter 3, He entered the synagogue again and there was a man who had a withered hand. They watched him closely. There they are again. What are you going to do on the Sabbath? Whether he would heal on the Sabbath so they might accuse him. And he said that the man who had the withered hand stepped forward and Christ asked, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil to save life or to kill? They kept silent. She went ahead and healed the man and he made the point that it is good. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And he healed the sick. You know, on the Sabbath, we have people, some people who are in the hospital, some people who are homebound that can't come to church, that have various illnesses. It's an appropriate Sabbath activity to visit people who are sick. It's an appropriate Sabbath activity to go out and to remind them and to bring some joy into their life and let them feel part of what we all feel part of every time we're at the Sabbath day.

You know, James 1, 27 says, pure and undefiled religion is this. Keep oneself unspotted from the world. And the Sabbath day, it is a challenge to keep ourselves unspotted from the world and to keep the world and everything else out of the Sabbath day. It's an ongoing challenge. Keep oneself unspotted from the world and visit the orphans and widows and their need. It is lawful, it is good to do that. And if you're looking for something to do, once in a while, you may just, once you go visit someone on the Sabbath, someone you haven't seen for a while. Over in Psalm 92, it's an interesting Psalm that has an interesting title. Psalm 92 says it's a song for the Sabbath day, a song for the Sabbath day. Verse 1, it's good to give thanks to the Eternal and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night on an instrument of ten strings, on the lute, and on the harp with harmonious sound. For you, Lord, have made me glad through your work. I will triumph in the works of your hands. Good to sing on the Sabbath day. Sometimes music has a place on the Sabbath day.

You know, music through the week, I listen to very little music during the week, if ever.

But on the Sabbath day, or through the week, I will maybe, if I'm wanting to feel a little more inspired, if I'm wanting to feel a little more close to God, I'll put on some of the hymns that we sing, or some songs that we may sing for special music here. And I find that my mood will grow toward God. And maybe on your Sabbath day, not every week, you would want to have some background music, that is, of the familiar hymns that you hear here, where you're praising God. Maybe your family would like to sing hymns on the Sabbath day. Music would be a powerful, powerful mechanism to turn our mood around and to focus us on what we need to be.

But I don't think the Christian music that you hear on whatever the Christian music radio station would be the thing you would want to play. I think you would want to play hymns. I think if you've heard something of special music here, that would be an appropriate thing to say or to sing. But too much of the stuff that is pawned off as Christian music today has wrong values in it, has wrong concepts in it. You don't want to fill your mind with words that sell something different than what the Bible says. You want things that will lend you and lead you to the truth of God. And so, music is a part of our Sabbath services. Music can be part of what you do to set the mood in your house once in a while. And as you feel it may be necessary.

Verse 12, Psalm 92, speaking of what the Sabbath day pictures, the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He'll grow like a steedor in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the course of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age. No matter what age we are, very young or very old, God still expects us and He will bear fruit if we are led by His Spirit. They shall be fresh and flourishing to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him. Let's look at one more example of something that was done on the Sabbath day. If you're looking to see what can we do to keep the Sabbath holy and not just sit. Acts 16. Acts 16.

Verse 11, Therefore sailing from Troas, Paul writes, we ran a straight course, the Sabbath race, the next day the Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days. And on the Sabbath day, verse 13, 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, Lydia and others. They went outside of the city to the riverside. You know, sometimes on the Sabbath it's good to be able to go out in the woods and just pray there. If you don't have the time to do that during the week, sometimes when we're out in nature and we're uninterrupted by a clock and a departure time and whatever, we can go out and we can feel at one, more at one with God when we're out in a situation like that. And we can pray more deeply, more fervently to Him. Maybe our families. When we get Him into an area that's not defined by what we do every other day of the week, that isn't a busy, hectic place, that we can be at peace and we can talk about the things of God and have a more meaningful conversation, if that's what we need to do to get out of the house and back into nature. Not to go and play there, not to go and find our own pleasure there, but to use this as an opportunity to grow closer to God and appreciate what He has done.

I could go on. I could go on and I'm out of time and I'm sorry for that, but we will... But you might want, as you read through the Bible, and you see the Sabbath day, you might look and see what is it that the people did, because God gives us the keys to what to keep on how we can keep the Sabbath and keep it fresh and keep it as exciting as a blessing and as a delight to Him. But we must keep it. We must not profane it. We must not allow other things to come into it that would ever be something where God would say we're defiling that day. Let's close in Isaiah 56.

And never ever discount how important the Sabbath day is to God, how important it is to our relationship with God, how important it is to our salvation, and never anything that we should ever be taking lightly or counting as common. It is the time that He gave us as a tool, a time He gave us as a gift, a time that He gave us to keep as a commandment. Isaiah 56, verse 1. Thus says the eternal, keep justice and do righteousness, for my salvation is about to come and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this and the Son of man who lays hold on it, who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Don't let the Son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the eternal speak, saying, God has utterly separated me from His people. Don't let the eunuch say, Here I am, a dry tree, for thus says the eternal, to the eunuch who keep my Sabbath and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant. Even to them I will give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Also the Son of the foreigner who joins themselves to the eternal to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to beat His service, everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and holds fast my covenant. Even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Let's make sure that we are keeping the Sabbath holy.