Kingdom of God Seminar, Part 2

We think about what is the substance of life? What is it made of? That's made up of time. I read something today where someone, supposed to be some wise man, I can't even remember who it was, said that even if you're poor, the one thing you have that even rich people have is time. Everybody has time. And every second we spend that time. Every second you spend, you don't give back. So it's the substance of what we have. And we spend it all the time. And so we rush through life, trying to accomplish things, trying to have relationships, trying to get to the next activity, trying to do what we think is important. But you sometimes feel out of sync with time. Just out of sync with everything. I mean, you're just you're doing things, even when you stop and you think, oh good, I have a day off. How many times have you had a day off where you just feel uneasy because you feel like you should be doing something? Or one psychologist, a book I read once, called it the Sunday Afternoon Psychosis, where after getting up and watching two football games, most people somewhere on Sunday evening are in a state of non-healthy mental state. They're just walking around sort of numb because of this overload of stimulus that's come in, and they're just not functioning very well. Time is an interesting thing because time is measured by physical bodies. It's measured by the sun and the moon and the stars. We took the teenagers out to Fort Davis here a few weeks ago. We went to the McDonald Observatory and they talked about how when people looked at the stars 5,000 years ago, how in the world did they get a bear? Well, they said, you know, the stars have shifted. Well, of course, the stars didn't shift, but over the years the Earth just spinning and moves just a little bit. And so the stars aren't exactly where they were 5,000 years ago. So they showed where the stars would have been, what you would have been looking at 5,000 years ago if you just shifted everything over. Well, what was a good look at 5,000 years from now? We shifted this way a little bit. Not much, but some. And some stars that we see now will actually sort of disappear over the horizon in 5,000 years. We measure everything by these physical bodies. That's how you measure a day, right? You know, we know how long a day is because of the rotation of the Earth around the Sun and the Moon around the Earth. That's how we measure seconds. That's how we measure the month. But you know, there is a measurement of time that is not based on physical bodies. It is the only measurement of time that's not based on physical bodies. It's the week. There is no spinning of the stars or the Sun or the Moon or the Earth that determines the week. If you go back in history, the Egyptians had a 10-day week, the ancient Egyptians, at least for a time period. The Romans tried an 8-day week at one time. Here in the Western world, we have a 7-day week. That's become almost the standard now for the world.

Where did we get the 7-day week from? Because it's not a measurement of time. Where did it come from? We go back to the book of Genesis, where we started this morning. We find another scripture, Genesis 2. Genesis 2. Because this creation or re-creation that was going on here in the universe at this time, says it took six days. Verse 1 of chapter 2 says, Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day God entered, ended his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. Now there's some people that like to look at Genesis and they say, well, each of those days was millions of years. That means God rested millions of years. Is he still resting? What does that mean? What does that mean? Because you and I have a 7-day week, whether we're Christians or agnostics or, you know, everybody lives by a 7-day week and it is based on this. It is based on a biblical basis that God created the earth in six days and he rested on the seventh day. And so we have a calendar. Most people go through life, they don't even know where the calendar came from. If you ask the average person today, where did we get the calendar from? Well, they'd go back to, you know, it's based on the Gregorian calendar and then we go back to the Julian calendar. But yeah, but where did the 7-day week come from? How did that become standardized? Who made that up? It comes from the Bible. So there is, when we look at time, there's something that God created that is not measured by physical bodies. God rested on the seventh day. They say, okay, well, maybe that means God rested in some metaphorical way. Or God is still resting. I've heard that argument. Of course, I don't know, Jesus said, my father works and I work. So if Jesus says my father works and I work, I don't guess he's not resting anymore. When we look at the Bible, how is this interpreted? Listen to the Old Testament. How is this interpreted in the Old Testament? God gave 10 commandments. You know, it's the only time that he came to earth and thundered out something that millions of people heard. It's the only time that's ever happened. He gave 10 commandments. They're very important. Don't murder. Don't steal. In fact, they're part of the basis of peace. Peace between God and human beings, and peace between human beings. If nobody stole, there'd be a whole lot more peace with her. If nobody killed, there'd be a whole lot more peace with her. If everybody honored their father and their mother, if there was no adultery, would there be a whole lot more peace? The 10 commandments are God's first steps in creating peace. They're just the first steps. There's a whole lot more that goes into our relationship with God and with each other. But this is where you start. You start with, here's the things you do. They have peace with God to begin this peace process. We're talking about peace process today. These are peace talks. God's having peace talks with us, His enemies. He says, enter into this relationship. We can have peace. Let's just start with these very simple principles. Let's go to Exodus 20, when the 10 commandments are given. And let's look at this commandment.

Exodus 20.

Verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you know your son or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or your stranger who is within your gate. He says, this is the Sabbath of God, and you are to remember it. Now people say, well, He just meant the Israelites here. He doesn't mean Christians. Well, we'll talk about that in a second, too. I don't know how we separate the 10 commandments and say, we're supposed to keep some of them and not all of them. I don't know how we do that.

They were given by God as a foundational beginning of how to begin this peace process. He started it with those people, but it's to go to everybody. Remember this day. Well, yeah, but let's look at it. I mean, it's an allegory. He really rested. He rested for a million years. Okay, let's look at verse 11. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. According to the 10 commandments, the seventh day Sabbath of Genesis is a day. And it is the seventh day. If you pick up your calendar and look any calendar... Well, this is changing in Europe, but in the United States still. You pick up any calendar. Look, and this is all based, of course, on the traditional calendar that's been in the Western world for 2,000 years. It's based on the Jewish calendar, which is based on the biblical calendar, and that is the seventh day is Saturday. What's amazing is how many languages... We call it Saturday because of the Roman background of the Western world. Saturday was the day of Saturn. But it's amazing in how many languages the seventh day of the week is Sabbath, or some of that word that if you translated it directly into English, it would be Sabbath. It is the Sabbath. In all the Scripture, wherever you see the word Sabbath, Old and New Testament, it means today.

A day that, according to the biblical reckoning of time, day started sundown. So from Friday night sundown, Saturday night sundown, is the biblical Sabbath. Nobody disagrees with that, by the way. Nobody. There isn't a Christian scholar, no matter what their denomination. Well, I can't say this. There's always somebody that does. But let me say the overwhelming mass of scholars. I don't care whether they're Baptist, or Catholic, or Lutheran, or Mormon. They all agree on something. They all agree that the seventh day Sabbath, observed in the Scripture, is what we call Saturday. They all agree. Now, there's a lot of complicated arguments of why we don't have to do it. But we all start with one agreement. We all understand what the Ten Commandments is talking about. It's talking about a day of rest. Remember I ended, what, in the first half? When Jesus said, come and we will rest. It's about peace, and it's about rest. I remember my grandmother, when my family started to observe the seven-day Sabbath. And she was furious, because we were doing something Jewish, and this was such a horrible experience. How could you go through that horrible experience of keeping the Sabbath? As a child, it was a horrible experience for me. I didn't have to cut the grass. Yeah, your kids can't do any servile work. I didn't have to do all kinds of things. It was a wonderful day. My grandmother was horrible. It was bondage. It was Jewish. She could say the word Jewish like she was spitting. I don't know why. She disliked Jewish people. But the entire scripture agrees, and all scholars agree, on one thing. We know what the Sabbath day was.

How can the Sabbath day Sabbath help you in your rest with God? I could go through a lot of scriptures in the New Testament explaining and showing that the New Testament church kept the Sabbath. I could go through all the arguments of why Christians should keep the Sabbath today. But instead, what I want to do is I want to go through three places where Jesus did something on the Sabbath. Just three places in the New Testament where Jesus did something on the Sabbath. We know, according to the Old Testament, that they worked to work on the Sabbath. We know that they worked to do their business on the Sabbath. We know in Isaiah it says that on this day you're not to do your own things. This isn't to be a day of just doing all kinds of pleasure things and fun things. Because it was a day of rest with God. People will say, well, I keep the Sabbath. What do they mean by that? There's a lot of people who believe that Sunday is the Sabbath. They say, I do keep the Sabbath. I keep it on Sunday. But what do most people mean when they say, I keep the Sabbath? They mean they go to church for an hour. They go to church for an hour and the rest of the day is just a day. You may go to work. You may do anything else you want.

You may go to Cody Island, right? It's just a day where you go to church. That is not the biblical concept. Because it has to do with your rest. This is one of the ways that God has given us to find peace and rest. Do not physical rest. That's part of it. But spiritual rest. And that's why if we really are seeking God with that poverty of mind, we want rest. And part of learning that rest and experience that rest is this day. So let's look at what Jesus did in Luke chapter 4. Luke 4 is where Jesus launched his ministry. So let's go to Luke chapter 4. He launched his ministry here, verse 16. He goes through the synagogue on the Sabbath. Because Jesus, of course, observed the Sabbath. It was his custom. Verse 17 says of Luke 4, He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. When he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. And of course, this is a quote from Isaiah. It's a messianic prophecy. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives.

And recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed. And to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. He says, I have come to free people. I have come to bring rest and peace. And this is who I am. Because look what he says. Verse 20 it says, Luke writes, And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all those who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. And He began to say to them, Today this scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing. The peace has begun. Now remember we already read where He told His disciples, I haven't come to bring peace yet. You still live in Satan's world. I've come to bring peace inside of you to work with you. But you're going to live in a violent, conflicted world. And it's going to be hard. And someday I'm going to return. That's why there's so much of the New Testament like the Old Testament. It's centered on Christ's return. Because when He returns, He brings peace. Although it's one of the great ironies of all time, that the Prince of Peace has to fight a war with humanity to bring peace. We just won't want it. Because what is the real human... We talked about this corrupted human nature. We're filled with conflict that we're really like two-gun Crowley, right? I'm a kind-hearted guy, and I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want to be left alone to do what I want and have my rights. I just want to be left alone to do what I want and have my rights. These people wanted to be left alone and have their rights. They saw themselves as the people of God. How did they respond to Jesus' message here?

You read the rest of chapter 4. They tried to kill him. These weren't wild, crazy people. These people were... They were the people of the Old Testament. They didn't have the New Testament yet. They worshiped, by the way, the one true God on the Sabbath day. And when they were given this message, because the way human nature is, they were no different than two gun-crawly. Well, we'll just kill this guy for saying what he's saying. Jesus said, I have come, and that's how he launched his ministry on this Sabbath day. And that is the core, part of the core of what the Sabbath is all about. It is to come to services, by the way. We could go through the Scriptures that show that actually coming to church services on the Sabbath is commanded. It's commanded in the New Testament. Worshiping God, serving God, the quietness of peace that comes both physically and emotionally and spiritually. Fellowshiping with other people, and working out the differences so that peace is taking place. To be the children of God. That's what this day is all about. It's about connecting with God so that you can be connected the rest of the time. Because otherwise, we just run through life out of sync with God, out of sync with time, and in turmoil. We have no peace. And this was a day designed for human beings to bring us rest and peace, physically, emotionally, and most importantly, spiritually, in our relationship with our God. And that's what Jesus proclaimed. And that's the basis of this day. Mark 3. Another place. Mark chapter 3. Verse 1. It seems like I'm drawn to this little section about once a year. It ends up in a sermon about once a year. I just can't get away from this little passage because it's so different than what I would do. But it shows the mind of Jesus Christ. He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there with a withered hand. He entered the synagogue. This is the Sabbath day. So they watched Him closely whether He would heal Him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse Him.

The Sabbath had become at this time in this society such a set of rules of do's and don'ts that Jesus Himself was accused over and over again of being a Sabbath breaker. Understand, if you read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will never, ever find Jesus Christ. Do nothing but support the Sabbath. He just supports it and supports it and supports it. He doesn't say it's done away with. He doesn't say you shouldn't do it. He's keeping it. The problem He's dealing with is that He's being accused of a Sabbath breaker because of the way He observes the Sabbath.

Because He kept living the Sabbath as a reflection of God's mercy, His love, His redemption, His caring for human beings. It was a day of rest, and He was bringing rest to people. He was bringing peace to people. And every time He did, somebody got upset with Him.

So instead of our society, where the Sabbath many times is going to church for a few hours and then just having fun or going to work, their extreme was the Sabbath was 24 hours of rules and regulations. So it was the other ditch. And they're trying to trap Jesus Christ. And He said to them, to the man who had the withered hand, step forward. I want you to know, this man's hand is withered. It's all marbled up. He can't pick up things. He can't do anything. And He's been like this for a long, long time. And He said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? He said, so let me ask you a question. It says, the Sabbath is a day of rest. And one thing they did understand, they were supposed to be entering into a rest with God on the Sabbath. They just didn't know how to do it. So if you make everything stricter and stricter, that's the way you'll have rest. They weren't relating to God. They were just making the day stricter. He says, should you do good on the Sabbath or bad? Well, yeah. How do you answer that? I mean, it's obvious you have to do good. Should you kill on the Sabbath or save life? Well, they all argued that you should save life, especially the Pharisees. One of the things that they argued was that you should save human life, even animal life, on the Sabbath. The Essenes didn't agree with that. They thought the Pharisees were way too liberal. You could save human life, but you had to let an animal die. I mean, even the Pharisees were considered liberal. See, it all depends on where you are, right? The Essenes saw the Pharisees as so liberal. So he brings out, but what is God about on the Sabbath? Is it about rest, restoration, peace? Peace between man and God. What greater peace can they be for God to heal this man? But they kept silent. They had to. If they agreed with him and they knew he was right, then he could heal the man. And when he had looked around them with anger, Christ could be very angry here with their hardness of their heart. Agree by the hardness of their hearts, he said, Stretch out your hands, and he withered all their hands. See, that's what I would have done. Okay, boys, I'm not messing around anymore. You've all got withered hands.

That's not what he did. It's amazing to watch how Christ channeled his anger. His anger wasn't sinful. He was angry with them. He was going to correct them, but he didn't correct them the way human nature does, corrupted human nature, which is fairly violent. Right?

What did he do? The end of verse 5. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored, and whole as the other. He healed. He brought about peace. He brought about rest into this man's life. And he picked the Sabbath day to do it. You know, there's other times he did healings. It is amazing, though, how many of his healings were on the Sabbath. It's amazing how many of his healings were on the Sabbath.

This is what it's about. God!

What were their reaction? Verse 6, And the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him that they might destroy him. What is the human reaction to what Jesus Christ was doing on the Sabbath day?

My heart is weary but a good one. It would do no one any harm, except this guy lets kill him.

The idea that our basic, our internal basic goodness gives us our security, our rest, our peace, will never bring rest or peace because inside our basic goodness is either being developed by God or it's not there at all. Oh, I mean, every human being has some goodness, right? We're all a mixture of good and evil. But God didn't make us to be a mixture of good and evil. We saw that in Genesis chapter 1 in this morning.

He didn't make us to be a mixture of good and evil.

To find true peace, we have to become good. We have to let God live in us.

The third scripture is in John 9.

John chapter 9. Interesting lesson that Christ gives here. Verse 14, by the way, says it was the Sabbath day when he does this. So this is something that happens on the Sabbath day.

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Now, we see everything in life we know is a product of sin.

And what we do is, individuals, exactly what the Pharisees did here.

Well, you know, your suffering must have been your sin.

But the problem is, the man was born blind, so how could he have sinned?

Well, it must have been his parents' sinned. And I bet you, you know, they committed adultery, or I bet you they didn't pay their ties, or I bet you they lied, or something, and this is how God punished them.

Of course, what he was teaching them was a couple of things.

One, you and I live in a sinful world. We're born into a sinful world, so all kinds of bad things happen to us.

It may be somebody else's sin.

You may be born with diabetes because of some genetic issue that was created by someone who sinned 300 years ago in your family tree, right?

Or it may just be the fact that all of us are weaker than we used to be. God didn't create human beings as weak as we are.

We're not what God created. We're deteriorating race.

We're just deteriorating all the time.

So they're looking at this, though, and they want to find someone to blame, to hang the sin on. His blindness was caused by who sinned.

Jesus' reaction, and remember this is the Sabbath day.

This is a Sabbath day, and He's telling us something.

Jesus answered, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but the works of God should be revealed in Him.

Jesus makes a remarkable statement, and He says, No, his parents didn't do this, and actually, this man didn't sin.

He was blind all his life for this moment.

God did this.

That's the... Wow, you think about it. God made a man blind? Yes.

Jesus said He made him blind, so I can give him rest.

He says, you know, He could have been born with sight, and spent His whole life, and never had contact with the Son of God.

God had made him blind to bring him in contact with Jesus Christ.

You know, we look at our lives, and it's so small, and it's so tiny, and we forget, what is God doing to you today to bring you in contact with Jesus Christ when He returns?

Some trial you're going through, some difficulty, some hard time, something that's not working out, and you may be absolutely in distress, and God's saying, Oh, no, no, I'm preparing you. And someone will say someday, well, was this guy going through this distress? Because he sinned or his parents? And God's answer might be, No, I did that, so when my son returns, he would be there.

Because I needed to do that with that person to do what I'm doing.

Verse 4 says, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, the night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva. He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. He tells him to go back and wash in this pool of water, and he comes back and he can see.

And if you read all what happens is, Pharisees decide, this guy has to be stopped. He's helping people on the Sabbath day.

Sabbath is a command of God.

We can go through the New Testament. There are certain scriptures that people say, well, we don't have to keep the Sabbath today.

God rested. Jesus said he rested. Jesus Christ said, I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

Because this is one of the ways, one of the things he uses to bring peace between God, His Father, and us. He uses this day to do that.

But there's something else that's interesting to me, because we know that Jesus Christ is returning to this earth. And He's going to set up the kingdom of God on this earth. And those who really understand what God is doing and the respondents of the gospel anticipate that.

Just like there were people anticipating Christ's return.

In Hebrews, it talks about all the people of the Bible, all the people who God worked with, anticipated Christ's first coming. They looked forward to it. They waited for it. They looked ahead and some of them saw His second coming, and they waited for it. They anticipated it. We should be anticipating that second coming, when He's going to bring peace.

Peace between individuals, families, neighborhoods.

Peace between communities. Peace between nations. We read the scripture in Isaiah where it says they will beat their swords and the plowshares, as He stops violence. But you know, that will only be sustainable because He changes people one at a time.

Because if He only does it through power, guess what's going to happen? People will keep attacking Him. If we could just overthrow His power, we could get the good way back.

You say, well, they wouldn't do that while they did it to Him His first time.

And believe me, those Jews of that time were no different than people are today.

He will change people one person at a time. He will change their nature. He will bring peace between people and God. And that's what He's supposed to do.

Create peace between God and the children.

There is an interesting messianic prophecy, though, in Isaiah 66.

Isaiah 66. Let's go there.

I won't read through all of it. I just want to capture a couple of the verses here. Verse 18 says, For I know their works and their thoughts, and it shall be that I will gather all nations in tongues, and they shall come and see My glory. Now we know that that's what happens when Christ returns. He gathers all nations of people together. So that and a number of other verses in Isaiah 66 give us an understanding that much of this chapter is about that time when the Messiah is on the earth. And all people are gathered to His glory and the glory of the Father. And He talks about things He's going to do. Let's go to verse 22. For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, remain before Me, says the Lord, so shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the Lord.

The new moons were a ceremony. It wasn't a holy day. But the Sabbath, we know what that is. It was a holy day set aside by God at creation for rest. And never in the history of humanity has people needed spiritual rest more than we do right now. We desperately need it. But remember when I talked about it at the first? You will never understand the Sabbath until you understand your need, your desperate need for rest. Until you grasp your desperate need for peace, until you grasp the desperate need at the core of who you are at your emotional level, at the core of your intellectual level, that you are in poverty before God, this won't mean anything to you. It only means something when you need the rest. Then you grasp what it's all about. Then you understand. When Jesus Christ returns, He is going to establish that all humanity, notice He doesn't say here, all Jews, all flesh will worship from Sabbath to Sabbath. If Jesus Christ is returning to establish the Sabbath for all humanity, I want you to think about this for a minute. God created the Sabbath at creation. This day, He could have said the tenth day, the eighth day, the third day, He created a day and said, this day I make for this purpose. God did that. Then He included it into the Ten Commandments. God did that. Jesus Christ came back and did His ministry, of which much of it was on the Sabbath, proclaimed what He was going to do, healed people, brought people to God on the Sabbath. Look through the book of Acts, and the whole early New Testament church, for decades, kept the Sabbath. And Jesus Christ, when He returns, is going to establish that all humanity must worship God on the Sabbath. Then explain to me why Christians today should not be entering into rest with God and with Jesus Christ on the Sabbath. The arguments don't hold water when you see it in the greater picture. They just don't. They don't stand up to the greater picture of what God is doing, and so we still lack the peace. We lack a connection with our own God. We lack a connection with each other. We lack a connection with Jesus Christ, and we lack it because one of the tools He gives us for that rest and for that peace is a commanded day to come into that rest and that peace so that we are then motivated, taken care of, worked with for the rest of the week. And if we as human beings say, I'm too spiritual for that, because I've heard that argument.

I'm too spiritual for that. That we really miss something.

So God has created this day for us. It is a gift. It is a gift of time. It is a gift that has no physical bodies to tell us what it is. Only a calendar kept by the Jewish people for thousands of years that we still have.

If you missed any of the previous Kingdom of God seminars, all eight presentations are online. You can go online to SanAntonioUCG.org.

You can watch all of them. We will plan to do maybe one more. I don't know if we'll keep this up every year, but we've been trying to connect with our good news subscribers. We've noticed that a few people here today are good news subscribers that we've seen in the past from the Kingdom of God seminars. I'm glad you were able to make it. But you can see those online. We always invite you to watch Beyond Today.

If you don't have the good news, you can get a copy. It's free. There are some free copies out on the information table. If this is your first introduction to the Sabbath, get the booklet Sunset to Sunset, God's Sabbath Rest. We have a few out there. If we run out, we'll show you how to get your free copy.

You can go online and read it. Go to UCG.org. You can read hundreds of articles and this booklet all about the Sabbath and why we believe the Ten Commandments have not been done away with. When he says, Remember the Sabbath, he actually means remembered because there's a purpose of meaning for this day. Of course, I want to also tell you that all the seminars that we have in the Good News magazine you get is sponsored by the United Church of God.

This is our congregation here. As I said before, we have about 160 people. We meet here every Sabbath. If you wish to learn more about the Sabbath, you're welcome to come. Have Sabbath services with us. This is a little different format, obviously, than what we have here. There will be more of congregational singing and those kinds of things. People ask if we collect money on the Sabbath.

No, we don't. When you come to Sabbath services, it will be just like here. We do teach that people should tithe, but we don't collect your money on the Sabbath. We believe that is an issue and a command between you and God. People say, when are you going to ask for the money? We don't take your money. I mean, we will, but we're not going to collect it.

We never turn down when people want to help us in our ministry. Thank you for coming. God is calling people who wish to worship Him. In spirit and truth, as Jesus said, and in rest and in peace. Are you willing to answer that call? Do we have any more announcements? I guess we have more food, right? Oh, yes. There is a survey. Where is that survey?

We have a survey. I guess we can hand them out or they can get it. We have a survey. For all those that are here, or are here, that aren't members of the United Church of God, I know some of you won't want to fill them out, but if you would like to fill them out, we have two men at the back here, and we'll just let you get them from them.

So as you leave, if you pick up, hand it back to them or put them back on the table outside. This is very important for us to know what's happening, what we're doing, what people, the responses, and what you found is helpful, what you would need in the future, what would help you in the future. Also, you could stay around. We have lots of food in the back. Someone said that I think we have enough food back there for ...of course, we never know how many are going to come.

One time we had 230 people show up. So we always make food for a big group. So there's enough food for everybody to go have. You'll be on a sugar high for all day. You go back in there and eat some more cake. So there's lots of food back there. So if you bow your heads, we'd like to end with prayer.

Father in Heaven, we thank you so very, very much for this opportunity. We praise you. Father, we've tried to give your word today, and we thank you for those people who do benefit from the ministry we do, and get the good news, and watch Beyond Today. You know, there's little churches all over the country like this one that's able to do what you want us to do in spreading that word. Father, we ask you to bless them, and we also ask you that if there's people you are calling to be part of our community here, that you will help us to be able to help them in their journey with you in understanding their purpose and plan that you have for their lives.

We praise you for this Holy Sabbath day. We don't worship the Sabbath day. It's not a day of the Talmud. It is a day of worshiping you, and of honoring Jesus Christ, and worshiping Him, and it's a day of rest, and it's a day of peace. We thank you, Father. We ask you for your peace and for your rest. We ask all this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.