Respecting God on the Sabbath

Now, once more, for the sermon, Mr. Frank, though.

Thank you again, Mr. Warren. While I'm pulling my notes out, I'll just mention...

This morning, I had an additional prayer that I forgot to write down. I was just going to mention, of course, ABC is about to start up. We have the picnic tomorrow.

I'm going to get acquainted. And the orientation on Monday and classes start Tuesday, which, from what I've heard, a lot of local school districts are starting on Tuesday.

Several colleges are, so that seems to be the day to start. So it's good to keep that in our memories. I think ABC is a good thing for the church, good thing for the students. And if you don't want to pray for ABC in general, pray for me.

Because I've been a substitute teacher there for the last few years, but having a class of my own that actually starts on the first day is, well, not something that I'm terribly intimidated by, but then again, I also think of the responsibility. Teaching kids American history seems kind of small compared to getting into the Bible and teaching that. But I am looking forward to it. I've had my nose in the book of Isaiah more than I care to mention lately. But I've got another subject for today. And I was going to say, I don't know what I'll do when Connor finally grows up, because as a speaker I've used examples from him probably so many times as introductions to messages sort of get beginning to be like a crutch. Still, having said that, I had an idea for the subject I was going to address today, and I was struggling to find a good lead-in. And I don't know if some of you may not do that where you know what you want to say and you want the right anecdote or something that'll help you bring it up. And I thought of Connor's behavior. I'll mention the particular incident that's stirred this, but I thought it happens many times. We'll go visit people's homes, and whenever we go there, the first thing Connor does is start looking for whatever toys they might have. Regardless of whether or not that's what our hosts are interested in, even regardless of whether or not they have children, I found that older ladies who have cats have cat toys. Those are still toys. Like most toddlers, Connor presumes that whatever he's focused on must be the most important thing and that everyone else should pay attention to it.

He hasn't learned yet the idea of showing respect to your host. You know, similarly, like about all kids, you know, Connor's ready to pretty much say about whatever comes to his mind when it crosses his mind. Not interested in waiting for an appropriate time or talking about what other people think is important. Things like that also include when we're praying together. I'm sure many of you parents have been through this experience. It's amazing how I feel like I'm just catching up to where a lot of you have been years ago. You know, we decided early on that one of the ways Connor would learn to pray is if we pray together. So we always pray before meals and we say a prayer with him at night.

But it's amazing how many times when we're praying before a meal I have to tell Connor, pay attention! Stop playing! Pay attention! Don't want to eat while we're praying! And again, the particular incident that spurred this in my mind, you know, we often pray and we've been teaching him at the end of a prayer. He'd say, amen. And I don't know how many times we wait.

And so, Connor, what do you say? One of these times it happened and I don't remember the exact voice. It was kind of squeaky, defiant. You know, Connor, what do you say? Amen! My immediate reaction was probably not the best because I bopped him on the head. Not hard enough to hurt, but wanting to get his attention. I said, Connor, we're praying you show respect to God. You know, show respect! That leads into the thought of something, you know, I wanted to address. Something that applies to all of us. We need to show respect to God at all times. And of course, we know that. It's not that I'm introducing something new, but I'm bringing it up because there are times for all of us that we're a little bit like a toddler.

In some cases, every now and then, we might be a lot like a toddler. We can get so caught up in our own perspective and what we're doing that we might not realize exactly how we're affecting others or coming across to others, especially to God. I'm not going to turn there, but in Galatians 4.19, the Apostle Paul, writing to the brethren in Galatia, said, my little children, my little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. Of course, to God, we're all little children. And I've sometimes wondered if that's comforting to those of us who are upwards of 70 years old and the skin's not as tight and firm as it used to be, or is it demeaning? They should think, I'm not a little child. Well, think of it this way. If it doesn't seem right, we might be little children to God, but He doesn't intend us to stay that way. I will turn to 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 20. Paul gives us a bit more of something to shoot for. It says, brethren, do not be children in understanding. However, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature. So we might always be as little children to God in some ways. That's okay, but He wants us to especially stay that way when it comes to malice, but in understanding be mature. It reminds me somewhat of when Christ sent the apostles out and He said, be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves. Well, I want to focus on being mature enough to think of showing respect to God. And my focus isn't on how we pray, although, of course, that is something we should think of, but another thing that we can sometimes take for granted, and that's the Sabbath. When it comes to the Sabbath, we should show respect to God and be mature in our understanding. Now, I go into this acknowledging that there could be room for confusion and how to do this, because the Sabbath was made for man. Man wasn't made for the Sabbath. And the Sabbath was never meant to be a burden, and it shouldn't feel that way to us. You know, how we keep the Sabbath isn't meant to feel like a straitjacket restricting us all the time and a whole bunch of things we're not allowed to do. But we should realize if the Sabbath was made for us, that doesn't mean it belongs to us. I'm going to turn to Exodus 31. Exodus 31 and verse 13. There are a number of places where I could have looked for this phrasing, but this one is close to where I wanted to go next. So Exodus 31 and verse 13. Here, God is speaking to Moses, so he can give that instruction to the Israelites. He says, Speak also to the children of Israel, saying, Surely, my Sabbath you shall keep.

It's a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am the eternal who sanctifies you. But God called them my Sabbath. Sabbath is made for us, but it doesn't belong to us. God created it as a blessing. It's a gift. He made a period of time holy. Now, I'm not going to turn to Isaiah 58 now. We'll go there later. But Isaiah 58 is a place where God says, Keep your feet off my Sabbath. Don't walk all over it or trample it. I like to think of it as a sort of a special space. If we could analogize holy time to a holy location, where God invites us to come in and spend time with Him. But we should be careful that we don't end up being like a three-year-old who's invited it in and then sets out looking for the toys, regardless of what the host wants to focus on. Now, we could inadvertently fail to show the proper respect to the one who owns the Sabbath. So let's consider some ways that we can try to be mature and show respect. The specific instructions we have in the Bible are not particularly elaborate. And that's one of the things when I started studying into it years ago, it struck me how simple the commands of what to do on the Sabbath are. If you want to go over to Exodus 20, as I said, it's nearby.

They're not elaborate, but they are clear. It's funny, they're not hard to understand. It's the extra questions that come up based on it that start becoming less clear. But Exodus 20, beginning in verse 8, God tells us this, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, we don't make it holy. Remember, He created. Six days you shall 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 or your daughter, your male servant or female servant, or your cattle or your stranger who is within your gates. And you could say, well, why? Four in six days the eternal made the heavens and the earth and sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the eternal blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Hallowed is a fancy way of saying He made it holy. Now, we could turn to Genesis 2. I think we know the account where God spent six days, we believe, recreating the surface of the planet. And on the seventh day He ended His labor.

And you can imagine He wasn't sitting on a log going, whoo boy, I'd like to create a little more, but I'm just so tired I got to take a day off. No, He planned it all out. He knew what He was doing. And in a sense, He didn't stop creating on the seventh. He created the Sabbath. And as I said, not because He was tired, but I like the fact that in some cases when God wants to give us instruction of something that's important, He'll do it first. Instead, an example, and say, now, see what I did? I want you to do this. It reminds me of Jesus Christ on that Passover just before He was crucified, where He was going to add a special ritual to the Passover that it hadn't been done before. So before He made any instruction, He took off His outer clothes, got a towel, and went around and washed the disciples' feet. And He said, you know what I've done to you? He only explained it. He said, therefore, as I've done to you, you should do to each other. And here in this fourth command, in a sense, God says, as I did at the very beginning, so you should do. Keep the Sabbath holy. And the single biggest way that we keep the Sabbath holy is by not working. That's the clearest command and the one without any quibbling. Now, we're all aware of the command that we just read says, don't work. Considerable debate has risen around, though, what do you mean by work, as far as the Sabbath is concerned? And some people have gone to great extremes. I've heard stories of the Orthodox Jews include things like tearing off squares of toilet paper on Friday afternoon so that they won't have to do the work of, you know, tearing loose a piece of toilet paper if they should need it the next day. And then things like, you know, not turning on light switches and so on and so forth. I don't know all the regulations, but every time I hear a new one, I go, wow! You know, some of them might seem kind of laughable. But before we start laughing, it's still good to think, how do we define it? There are a number of ways to define work. And I said this this morning, I should have got a physics book out, because I was thinking there's a physics definition, and I think it says something like, work is the amount of energy required to move any amount of mass any distance. So, you know, the work to actually move anything, so that's a pretty narrow, strict definition, but it involves movement. And I think it also could be interpreted to change the temperature, but that's getting more specific than I want. We can have some more informal definitions. I've heard one say, if you ain't sweating, you ain't working. Usually men who are out working on a job site would say that to someone sitting in a nice air-conditioned office. Some people would say, if you don't do it for... No, let me back up and say that again. If you do it for pay, then it's work. Or what I do on my own time is for me, what I do on the boss's time, that's work. Well, those are all colloquial definitions that have some use, but what does God's Word say? And showing respect to God means it'd be good to look there and see if it gives us some guidance. There are some in Jeremiah chapter 17.

Jeremiah 17 and verse 19. There's one passage, and I'm not going to go to every place that says anything about the Sabbath, but there are a few that give us some ideas. Jeremiah 17 and verse 19. Jeremiah, speaking, he says, Thus the Eternal said to me, Go stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out. And in the gate all the gates of Jerusalem. Say to them, Hear the word of the Eternal, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who enter by these gates.

Thus says the Eternal, Take heed to yourselves. Bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem, nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work. But hallow the Sabbath day, as I've commanded your fathers. It seems to make it pretty clear. Heavy lifting is work.

And that seems to fit in with the physics definition, only it seems to say it's a burden. Some things are pretty light. We wouldn't necessarily say that. And it occurred to me, if you want to be very literal, some people would say, Well, I can lift weights in my basement with my weight set.

I'm not carrying out of my house. I don't think that's what he was getting at. You know, when you're you're expending that energy to bear a burden, he's saying, Don't do that, nor any work. He doesn't say that's the only thing. So what else is work? There's a general guideline. I'd say, if you got to break a sweat moving it around, don't do it on the Sabbath. Well, I thought back that fourth command that tells us, you know, Six days do your work, and the seventh is the day of rest. Well, that gives us an idea. The occupation that takes up our time the other six days.

And actually, we could be more specific, or maybe I shouldn't say specific, but let's loosen it up. We live in a wealthy society. Most of us have an occupation that takes up five other days, and we can afford to have a day where we don't keep the Sabbath or have to work. Although, how many of you rest on the other day? You know, you're out in the garden, you're painting, you're doing whatever. But I'd say, suffice to say, that covers our occupation.

Whether you have a paid job that requires manual labor, say you're a plumber, you're loading trucks, you're assembling machinery in a factory, or if your job entails more sedentary activities, like accounting, or computer programming, or answering phones, that sort of fits with some of those casual definitions. You know, what you get paid to do for a living is not what you should do on the Sabbath.

You know, that's what's on the boss this time. It's funny how many question marks I used in writing up my notes here. What if you don't draw a paycheck for your regular occupation? What if you're a stay-at-home mom? It's funny, I went through all this, and then this morning I said, oh yeah, there are stay-at-home dads these days, too. Now, that doesn't really matter with a stay-at-home mom or a dad. What if you're a full-time student? I would say these occupations still fall within the command, you know, the fourth commandment, to not work.

Six days a week you might be working at that occupation, at the various duties that it entails. So it makes sense on the Sabbath, you don't do those things. And of course, more questions can come up. Some would say, oh, you're being real legalistic if you consider these. I think it's more legalistic if you just say there's only one right answer to some of the more particular questions. So rather than, I'm not going to try to give a Talmud list, but I want to consider some of them and apply that principle of respecting God. Stay-at-home moms have job duties that include things like feeding the kids, keeping them properly groomed, dressing them, doing all kinds of housework, teaching your children.

You know, you got to teach them everything from tying their shoes to combing their hair to, you know, not eating dirt or feathers, as we learned recently with Connor. It's interesting, I had all these notes prepared and then yesterday evening we were sitting on the couch watching the evening news. I don't remember how we got to that conversation in the conversation, but it led up to Connor saying something about me lifting something, and he said, daddy's are for lifting heavy things.

So, okay, I'm okay with that being in my job description. So Sue was asking, well, what do mommies do? Well, mommies fix lunch, and mommies go to the store and get things, and Sue had to point out there, she does a few more things than that in life. But, you know, how can a full-time mom rest on the Sabbath? Now, all of your full-time moms have had to deal with that, or if you're a working mom, you still have to know how to deal with that.

You know, should a mom say to the kids, it's the Sabbath, you're on your own. Go change that diaper yourself, or you know, things like that. There's where it occurred to me, maybe that thought of showing respect can help decide some of those things.

Imagine if you had guests in your home, and I don't mean your best friend who you could do anything around, but guests that you want to show respect to. You might consider it disrespectful to do some activities. If you have guests home where you probably wouldn't start running the vacuum cleaner, you probably wouldn't say, oh, can you stay here for a while, watch TV a little bit, I've got to go mow the lawn, or I'm gonna go in the kitchen and start baking a cake for tomorrow night.

But no matter who your guests were, you probably wouldn't have qualms if you did smell that a diaper needed change to say, excuse me, I have to take care of this. Or if you had a young enough child, say a two-year-old who eats at a certain time, you know, feeding them in front of someone. Now, this could be facetious, but you know, I think it's worth considering. There's another, you know, general maxim that I've heard in the church for as long as I can remember, and many of you have heard this, there are many tasks that you'd say if you can do them in advance of the Sabbath, maybe you should do them.

You know, we try to give Connor a bath on Fridays. Now, of course, most of us when you get older usually bathe every day, or it's fairly common nowadays, but Connor's typically his bath days are Tuesdays and Fridays. And so we try to, you know, get the bath in Friday afternoon or evening before sundown.

Sue's made it a habit of trying to have something prepared ahead so that when we come home, you know, after Sabbath services, it's a real easy heat up or doesn't even have to be heated so we can have dinner that way. And I could go on and on with my own personal thoughts and examples, but you don't need to hear my examples. My thought is if we apply some common sense and ask God's Spirit to guide us, you know, it should help us think about the things that, you know, we can do to show respect or refrain from doing. God didn't list every possible activity and put a yes or no next to it, and so I'm certainly not in that position.

Now, Jesus corrected the Pharisees for trying to do that, and I'm certainly not listing, you know, the things that I do and don't do to say this is the standard that you have to live up to. That's one of the reasons I wanted to say we try to do those things, but I know there have been a number of times where we plan to give Connor a bath and I'll get a phone call that I have to deal with and Sue's busy finishing what she was doing, and so it's already sundown. You know, Connor still needs a bath. You know, I always thought, well, it might be more disrespectful to God to leave him dirty and a little smelly and bring him to Sabbath services than it would be to give him a bath. One standard I've used, and I ask your pardon if I've used this, if I've talked to you about this before.

I've mentioned it many times in private conversation. I didn't remember if I mentioned in a sermon, but, you know, what you do for your daily occupation can vary, and if you move to the point where you're not doing manual labor, it can be hard to make a judgment on whether it's appropriate or not. At least that crossed my mind in something that seems very appropriate for the Sabbath, and that's reading. Reading sounds great for the Sabbath, doesn't it?

But you might ask, well, what materials are appropriate to read for the Sabbath?

I've got at least a couple boxes of comic books at home, but I generally don't get them out. Well, I don't get them out and read them ever, but I did a lot when I was younger. Maybe one day I will, but, you know, there are certain things I don't read on the Sabbath. Well, what about biographies of great people or good historical accounts? Most of us would probably say, well, that seems okay for the Sabbath, and it sounds good to me. But there was a time in my life when that didn't seem so fine. When I was in my graduate program at Texas A&M, I typically had to plow through about three books each week, and I had to write papers, and I had to listen to lectures and join in discussions. So studying history was work. When the Sabbath came, I said, I'm not gonna read any history. But nowadays, I don't read much history. I don't have much time, but I spend a lot of time reading the Bible. Matter of fact, as I said, I've been, you know, in preparation for teaching major prophets, I've had the commentaries out and studying word-by-word going through Isaiah to try to get some speaking notes together. So it might sound really odd if I tell you I don't study the Bible a lot on the Sabbath because it seems almost too much like my daily work. Now, it's not that I don't read it at all. Matter of fact, I do without even thinking.

I get up Sabbath morning and have some coffee and read through my Bible like every morning. I think that's a good thing to do. And I review my Sabbath notes and do some things, but I'm not going to go home after services today and get back out and start that studying for my class preparation.

No, it's the Sabbath. I want to rest. And surprisingly, often on Friday evenings before bed, I'll pull out a history book. I've been reading the same one now for about two and a half years.

Well, I tend to fall asleep before I make too much progress. But it's a six-volume history, so it's not that I don't make any progress. So please don't take this as me making a dogmatic statement of what's acceptable and what's not. I'm just sharing some of my personal experience in the way I try to show respect to God. As I said, whatever is your normal occupation, God understands that and He wants you to have a normal occupation. Matter of fact, there have been some people in society who have went out of their way to point out, the command does say, six days you shall work. It would be wrong to say, hey, I'm going to rest five or six days of the week. You know, God gives us a day to rest. Don't rest too much.

Work those other days. But whatever your daily work is, the Sabbath is a day to not do that.

Let's add to this picture, if we can, by turning to Nehemiah 13. Nehemiah 13, beginning in verse 15.

And instead, I thought I'd deal with some of the questions that come up, and by dealing with them doesn't mean telling you, yes, you can do this or no, you can't do that. But as I said, trying to put them through that prism of showing respect to God. Nehemiah 13 in verse 15.

Nehemiah, of course, was the governor at this time. He'd been serving high up in the Persian empire as the king's cupbearer. And when he learned that the walls of Jerusalem were still in disrepair, you know, he got permission to go and oversee building the wall, and then was appointed to serve as governor for a time. So this happens while he's there. And he says, In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath, well that sounded a lot like their daily work, and bringing in sheaves, loading donkeys with wine, grapes, and figs, and all kinds of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. 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. Then 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? Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and in the city? And yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath. This shows us that along with laboring, doing business, and that buying and selling seems to be a way to not keep the Sabbath day holy.

Now I could just stop there and walk away and say, hey, no doing business on the Sabbath.

And that's a good way to look at it. But I thought it'd be good to look at what's involved in the scenario I just described, because it would be easy for us to picture, you know, when we buy and sell provisions, you know, I can wheel a nice cart down the aisle of Krover and pick up some things that are nicely packaged into units I can carry with one hand, write a check or whatever, and I'm out. And, you know, it doesn't seem like as much work as if I were going to an open-air market.

I don't think we have too many of those. Actually, coming down Route 23, I went by the flea market, which is still there. But when I was a college student in Pasadena, I remember this was my first experience of this kind of thing. A few of us loaded up in a car and drove a couple hours south and crossed the border into Tijuana, Mexico. And I don't know if any of you have had that experience, but it's like a different world. You know, there's all these booths and shops and people calling to you and you want to buy something? Well, they'll name a price, but they're not expecting you to pay that price. They're expecting you to argue with them. It's haggling. You know, they'll, you know, it's like, how much do you want for that sweater? You know, and they'll say something sometimes that sounds like a good price to us. You know, only $12. $12? What a bargain!

If you pay him $12, he's going to be insulted. You need to offer him three. And then he'll argue back. And, you know, it's quite a burden, so to speak. And, of course, that sometimes could be, you know, the easy part. Then you've got to arrange payment. You know, at the time this was described, they were dealing with metallic currency. You know, they didn't just swipe a piece of plastic or write out a check. You pulled out gold and silver that had some heft. It was work carrying it around. One thing, the first time I came across this in a historical document, it surprised me because we're used to making change. You know, I often in my pocket, I've got quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. You know, they had some different denominations, but a lot of times you'd pull out a gold coin, and if what you were going to buy costs three quarters of that coin, the merchant might pull out a pair of snips or a saw and cut a wedge out of that coin and give you the quarter back that was your change. So that's, you know, it literally happened a lot of times. And then they might have to put those together, and sometimes they'd remelt them. You know, it was more involved in shopping and buying and doing business than we do today. So I wonder how much different from that is if I'm here on the Sabbath day and I happen to see someone and I hand them an envelope. Here. He puts it in his pocket. You know, and that envelope just happened to have a piece of paper in it. Could be a check, could be a ten dollar bill.

Not quite the same as all that haggling and cutting money and all that that I just described.

And I'm bringing up this example because it's been a practice that's happened in the church for as far back as I can remember. The reasoning is, while this is not bearing a burden on the Sabbath, weighs far less than an ounce. Not really even doing business. I mean, in the sense of most of what business entails, the negotiating, the entering into an agreement, the transferring of goods, usually all that happened another day. Hmm. Does all that matter? Now, I'm not going to say that I have the precise answer. You know, I dare say I'm venturing into areas that make some of us uncomfortable. But it's okay. I don't mind if I make us a little uncomfortable to say, hey, there's different perspectives. It's not as clear-cut as I might think. You know, I just voice the main reasoning that says it's okay, but there's reasoning to say that it's not, and I think it's important to respect that. I could say the same thing about putting gas in my car on the Sabbath.

You know, there was a time when pumping fluid in, it was a bit of work. Nowadays, I can pull into a station and stick a nozzle in my car almost effortlessly while a mechanized pump moves the fluid in. And then I pull out a plastic card, and I'll drive away. You could even say the transaction won't be recorded by the bank until Monday.

A lot of converted Christians, I mean, people with God's Holy Spirit, do not feel that either of those things are showing respect to God on the Sabbath.

And I can understand that reasoning. As I said, I've gone both ways, and I don't want to start saying that everything is relative. I want to say we want to judge and show respect to God.

I'll say, speaking for myself, and I did this yesterday afternoon, I told Sue I need to run out, and I'm going to gas up my car. You know, I like to do that on Fridays. And generally, if something's going to come up, I'll put a stamp on the envelope and send it in the mail.

However, because that's my habit, it doesn't fill me with guilt if there's some reason I didn't get gas in the car before the Sabbath started. And that's happened. I've just been so consumed with things that I had to do that I didn't get around to it. Or I've had times where I was in the car driving when the sun set. I'm on my way home. And, you know, which would be more disrespectful for me to buy the gas or to let myself run out on the roadside? Or, you know, not to stay at home and not do my job? And I'll mention, you might say, oh, you're getting into that oxididic area.

And I'm not even going to address that. Not because it's unimportant, but I think it is.

It occurred to me, you know, we could go into that. That's a good topic some of our other men might want to study into. It could be covered in a sermonette. It is probably enough to it that a split sermon wouldn't be giving it too much time. I'll just say that one way I strive to respect God concerning the Sabbath is to take care of things in advance when I can. It's not very respectful to God to think of what He values only after I've paid attention to my own concerns.

Putting Him first, that shows respect. And it takes thought and foreplanning. And sometimes the thought and fore, you know, as they say, the plans of mice and men go after stray. I can't do it with the Scottish accent. But God understands when your plans do go astray. But if you make plans to put God first, there's your ideal that you want. Now, this has been a lot of focus on what to not do on the Sabbath. Scripture also provides us a definite command of what to do on the Sabbath that is likewise simple but vague enough to raise questions. If you'll go with me to Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23 and verse 3. Of course, Leviticus 23 lists all of the annual holy days. But before it gets to those annual occurrences, it does mention the one that comes up every day. Not every day. We'd never get any work done. But once a week. Leviticus 23 and verse 3.

Actually, I could back up to verse 2 where God tells Moses, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations.

These are my feasts. Not Moses's, but God's.

Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It's the Sabbath of the Eternal in all your dwellings. Now, we've already focused on the doing no work. But he also, twice I read there, that it's a holy convocation. My Ungar's Bible dictionary says that convocation means an assembly, a gathering of people together, and a holy assembly is people coming together for the purpose of worshipping God. God said the Sabbath is a holy convocation. It's the day of the week that we assemble together for the purpose of worshipping Him. And that's why we're here.

You've all obeyed that command today, and that's good. Christ never said anything to contradict that when He came, when He spent on earth, the time He spent, He didn't say, we're going to do a change in that law. And the matter of fact, it was well after His crucifixion that we can read in Hebrews 10, verse 25. There's one line that we focus in on that verse, and many of you probably already know what it's going to say.

I say I could quote it faster than I can turn to it. But I'm going to turn to it anyways.

Hebrews 10, in verse 25, the author who many of us think was the Apostle Paul, but have room for doubt. But no matter who it was, it says, well, if we go back to verse 24, it says, consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. So do these other things. Stir up good works. Consider one another, but don't do that to the extent that you forsake assembling ourselves together.

And I'm putting that as though it was a contrast. I don't think He meant that. He meant these things go together. We stir each other up, and we don't forsake assembling together as the manner of His as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching. In other words, let's continue to meet together. Continue that holy convocation.

There are other days and reasons why Christians meet together at other times. Sometimes we have socials, we could have work projects, things like that. But the Sabbath day is the holy convocation.

Well, I should say the Sabbath and the annual holy days that are also holy convocations. Those are times that we must gather together. Okay, that's clear enough. That's easy.

But other questions are going to come up. Questions do arise. What if I'm sick?

What if my car breaks down? What if the distance to Sabbath services is far, far away?

What about watching services via a webcast? What about listening to a recording of a sermon?

The Bible just plain doesn't answer these questions, especially the ones about the webcast or the car breaking down. I was thinking this morning, if God had put something about webcast into segulations, just think for centuries people would be analyzing the Greek saying, what in the world does that mean? And then when Al Gore finally invented the Internet, they'd be saying, aha! That's not in my notes, by the way.

We can come up with some reasonable answers, though, if we use common sense and again ask ourselves, how can I best show respect to God?

Because we should realize there are times when a Christian can and even should refrain from assembling with brethren on the Sabbath. And I think you all know the first thing we think of, if you have a cold or any other communicable disease, stay at home. You know, the book of Leviticus has a long section where it describes the process of quarantine. And in all of that, it never says, well, accept on the Sabbath, unquarantine yourself and then go meet with people.

Of course not. And I think those instructions in Leviticus make the case that it's probably better to err on the side of being overly cautious. You know, stay home an extra week if you need to.

And I know a lot of us, we don't want to. I don't have to encourage most of us, oh, you should come to church. Well, I really don't want to. Most of us are like, I want to go, you know. And I've been there, you know. I'm telling the truth. No, I'm okay. I haven't had a fever for two days. And she's, maybe you shouldn't go. So I have to remind myself of what I'm telling all of you. I'll mention also, of course, there are brethren who are too infirm. Maybe they have a long-term sickness. Or maybe just through age where coming to services just is out of reach for them, at least most of the time. And most of the people that that applies to aren't here. If you're listening to this on a recording, I'll look at the microphone. I'm not saying this to be critical of you. You know, if you are listening to this because you can't come to services, I understand that. And certainly God does. Now, what if you have a headache? You just don't feel like coming to services. And I said, well, yeah, but can anybody catch your headache? Probably not. But as soon as I wrote that, I said, well, then again, what about migraines? Now, I've never had one. I don't experience them, but I've talked to people who do. And I understand, you know, from what I understand, there's a... they reach a point where it'd be a disservice to yourself and others perhaps to come.

You know, I've heard some people say it could be dangerous to get behind the wheel of a car if you're the one that's supposed to drive. So I'm not going to answer the question because, you know, the person that's having the migraine is the only one that knows to what extent it is. That person and God. But as that person's going through it, he could say, well, what's going to show respect to God?

And usually you can be honest. Sometimes it's difficult because, like I said, it's more often someone's pushing themselves to go when God would say, give yourself a break, stay in bed.

And so if that's the case, we shouldn't be judging others because we don't know, you know, like I said, how much their thinking is affected or their ability to see or do anything.

What if your car breaks down on the Sabbath?

You know, a lot of times if you're on the road, you can pray for a miracle.

But if God doesn't give you one, sometimes you have your answer right there. You know, I'm not going to make it in time.

It reminds me of, I think, yeah, it was the spring before Sue and I moved down here.

I think Gary Smith told me he and Liz were on their way down to Preston'sburg on Pentecost and got a flat tire and they had to call and say, we can't get there on time. Now, that's a whole different story.

If it breaks down on Wednesday or Thursday, and you start getting into that gray area, how much effort or money, how much urgency do you have to put into it to make sure you're showing proper respect to God and trying to be able to do that?

Or is it respectful to God if I'm too proud to call someone on the phone and say, hey, could you give me a ride?

Hopefully, you know, and I put myself in that because that would be me on a lot of occasions.

That's it, Frank. You might not like to ask people for things, but God expects you to be there. Show respect.

How many times have you heard someone say, well, I didn't go to SABAS services, but I listened to a tape.

Most of us have. Most of us have said it at one time or another.

And I think I have.

Although I know there have been times when I've had friends say, oh, yeah, come, we're going to go to this activity.

Well, there's not a congregation nearby, but somebody's bringing a tape.

You know, we'll listen to a sermon.

And I'm not saying that to say, oh, they were terrible sinners.

But most often I've said, maybe I'll catch up with you on Sunday.

Now, listening to recorded sermon can be a very valuable use of our time.

It is worthwhile.

Matter of fact, I should stop here.

I was surprised when I moved into this area to hear how much people listen to sermons on the SABAS and other days of the week.

And the invention of iPods have made it all the more easy to do.

So it's good to listen to sermons.

But is it assembling together for worship?

I think if we're honest with ourselves, we say in most cases, it's not.

Not if you're doing it alone.

And I'm not saying this to make anyone feel guilty.

And I'm not saying listening to a recorded sermon is a waste.

I just want to emphasize, of course, that holy convocation is the gathering together of people, of brethren, for worship.

Usually at our worship services, we spend the bulk of our time listening to an instructive message.

That's what we're doing here today, and I'm trying to be instructive.

And that's your question.

And that's usually what happens when we gather.

Now, there are other ways.

I've commented that the Bible doesn't tell us how to do Sabbath services.

It says we've got to gather together. We've got to worship God.

We've followed traditions that have been around for a long time.

There are some that suggest we should have more music, that we're actually participating in the worship more.

More prayer.

Others, you know, don't want to have sermonettes, want to have more...

You could argue and discuss that a lot.

I'd like to say I'm happy with the leadership of the church to set that agenda.

But in recent years, we've developed an alternative that would be mind-blowing to the ancient Israelites.

You could sit on your couch or sit at your kitchen table with a little black box in front of you, and see and hear what is going on at a holy convocation miles away across the country.

We call it a cybercast or a webcast.

You know, in the older days, we might have called it a phone connection.

Nowadays, we like to call it just linking up, logging in.

Scripture does not say to what degree joining a webcast of services satisfies the command of assembling for worship, does it?

Well, I would say we have some ideas, though, and you think, well, how many times have I been in a congregation that's done this?

I didn't plan to give this necessarily on a day when I knew Prestonsburg wouldn't be online, but, you know, we have groups of people that do that.

How many remember the very first time at the Feast of Tabernacles we had the microwave transmission?

I see some nodding. Those were exciting days.

You know, all across the country, we're all going to listen to the same sermon at the same time.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Of course, we were gathered in congregations.

And, as I said, when we're down at Prestonsburg, or as we have planned for late September, we're planning to gather here and join them for their service.

So, I think, you know, there are cases where it certainly does satisfy that command to assemble together. Is it much different, though, if the person's sitting by themselves in a kitchen, you know, watching services on a computer? I say kitchen. I guess I like to do things at the kitchen table. I'm not sure if that's old-fashioned of me.

Well, it doesn't make a difference if that person is joined by others, you know, especially his family. Part of me says, well, it seems like it should make a difference.

As I looked at this, I thought, you know, maybe we can make a ranking of what's preferable, as within our ability. And I'll say this. This is my own opinion. I sort of thought, I see these as descending order, but it's not in the Bible, and it's not a church doctrine. So, take this with a grain of salt. As I said, it's just, you know, one guy saying, this is what I think is better in order of best. Meeting together with brethren at Sabbath services is the best.

You know, that seems to fit the command. Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together.

That's what we should strive to do every Sabbath, as much as we're able. As I said, the car doesn't break down, and you don't have Ebola or something like that.

Now, joining a live service, as it happens via electronic communication, with another group of people, I'd say is second best. Joining a live service electronically by yourself is probably the next thing after that. You know, much better to do that than say, well, I can't do it with other people, so I won't turn the computer on. And that raises the question. You know, as I said, I'm good at raising questions better than I am at answering them. Maybe that's what led me into academia. But you might say, well, is it better if I sit by myself and watch the webcast, or if I gather with a group of brethren? And don't do the webcast. And that led me to the question of, well, could you do both? You know, why aren't those brethren wanting to join the webcast? You know, what's the attitude of the general group? And here, I'm looking at my experience, as I said, I guess I was unusual in that, well, unusual in a lot of ways, but unlike most people, I went to college for 12 years instead of four. So when I, you know, I had a group of friends that were college students while I was still a college student, and they were all about 10 years younger than me. And so, you know, I think we developed our way of looking at the Sabbath, hadn't matured to the same level, perhaps, because they were the group that would say, hey, we're going to go on a weekend camp out, and we'll bring a tape, you know, come with us, you know, or we'll log on.

But, you know, if you're like me, you know, if there's something like that going on, it's easy to, you know, people start whispering, you start looking around, and it tends to not be the same, or it easily can get out of hand. That's where I still say, like I said, having a live speaker is better than a webcast or some kind of connection. I'm not a big fan of online classes, because having taken some, I know it's easy. Well, boy, he said that already. I'm going to minimize that screen and check my email while he's talking. And, you know, I've done that, and then maybe I'll play a little solitaire while I'm at it. But if you're right there in the room with a guy, you tend to pay attention, even if he is boring. And I'm thinking to myself, Frank, Tuesday afternoon, try not to be boring. Okay, anyways, I've gotten off track, but as I said, you know, there's a descending order. Several factors come to mind. Below this whole idea of, like I said, joining electronically, then you get into, well, I can have a recording of a sermon, you know, that I can imagine what it'd be like to be at services, or spending time studying your Bible. You know, if the Sabbath comes and you can't be with brethren, you certainly want to be with God and with His Word. You know, but I'd say the next step after that is being by the Sabbath and just at least not working. Because you go beyond that, if you go to work on the Sabbath, you're not keeping the Sabbath. So again, this is me stating my opinion, and we could shuffle the deck, but do you see where there's a goal to strive for the highest standard? Let's try to do the best we can, because it's God's Sabbath. You know, and we want to plan ahead to be able to do these things. Now, all this is dealt with these two basic requirements. I often say that there's two main things God says about the Sabbath. Don't work, gather together with the brethren to worship. But we know the Bible does tell us more about keeping the Sabbath, and I think that the more seems to be based to a greater degree upon attitude and intent, even than the things we've been discussing. Although, as I've been trying to show that our attitude and our respect to God plays a big, has a big influence on those things. But that more is largely found in Isaiah 58. I do want to go there now. Isaiah 58 in verse 13. This is a section of Scripture I like to think it gives us some insight into what God had in mind for the Sabbath. They said He could tell us, don't do this, do that. But this sort of shows, you know, this is what I want it to be like. This is the feeling I have about it. And here, God is speaking pretty much in first person. He says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, that's a metaphor for saying, don't trample the Sabbath. Don't walk all over it. How do you do that? You know, well, from doing your pleasure on my holy day. See, it's God's day. Call the Sabbath a delight, a holy day of the eternal, honorable, and honor Him, and not doing your own ways. Not finding your own pleasures, nor speaking your own words. Then you'll delight yourself in the eternal, and I'll cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father. Those are some pretty special blessings for respecting God and the Sabbath.

And of course, I often note one of the things we shouldn't notice first here is that the Sabbath is to be a delight. We're not prohibited from doing anything that's pleasurable or enjoyable on the Sabbath. Of course, you can sit and do nothing and find that pretty enjoyable, especially if you've got a nice view off your back porch. I spent some time yesterday, it wasn't the Sabbath yet, but Connor wanted to zoom his cars on the back porch and wanted me to sit and watch him, and I was looking up the woods saying, you know, Frank, you should do this more often. It's kind of pleasant here. But in the sense, all I'm saying is we don't have to wear our most uncomfortable underwear and, you know, not eat anything that tastes good or whatever. You know, the Sabbath is to be a delight. Not finding your own pleasures doesn't mean not having any pleasure.

Our other conduct on the Sabbath, though, either does or does not respect God.

Let's look at Ezekiel chapter 20 while we're nearby. Ezekiel 20 and verse 19, there's a phrase here that I wanted to bring out, and then I was disappointed that I quoted it. The new King James translates it a little different than the old King James.

Oh, did I say Ezekiel 19? I meant to say Ezekiel 20 verse 19. That's what happens when I put my glasses on after I read the verse. Ezekiel 20 verse 19, he says, I am the Lord your God, walk in my statutes, keep my judgments, and do them. Hallow my Sabbaths, and there'll be a sign between me and you that you may know that I am the eternal your God. Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against me. They did not walk in my statutes, and were not careful to observe my judgments, which if a man does, he'll live by them. But they profaned my Sabbaths. The original King James uses the word polluted my Sabbaths. They polluted my Sabbaths, and I said I'd pour out my fury on them and fulfill my anger against them in the wilderness. I thought of that combining that with keeping your foot off it. If you think of an animal or even a person where there's a drinking hole. A lot of times cattle, they've got a drinking place, and if some of them have muddy hooves and just go walking right into it, they muddy it all up for everybody. God is saying, I don't want you polluting my Sabbaths by walking in with your muddy feet. But still, that doesn't tell us what to do or not do, and I don't want to list a bunch of do's and don'ts. We've done that more than really intended to. And, you know, I had a sermon some time ago where I talked about maybe how we could apply those things of what institutes your pleasure and your words. But I thought if we just think in general about respecting God, that might be a good prism to look through when we're trying to think, should I do this or not do that? And as I thought of that, two passages came to mind. They're both in Malachi, the first chapter of Malachi. Now, these chapters are not specifically about the Sabbath, but they are about showing respect to God.

Malachi 1, and I'm going to begin in verse 6.

Malachi 1 in verse 6, he says, A son honors his father, and a servant is master.

If then I am the father, where is my honor? This is God speaking.

If I am a master, where is my reverence, says the Lord of Hosts, to you priests who despise my name?

Yet you say, in what way have we despised your name? Well, you offer defiled food on my altar, but say, in what way have we defiled you? By saying, the table of the Lord is contemptible, and when you offer it, the blind is a sacrifice. And of course, if you read in the Old Testament, the sacrificial law says you offer animals that are perfect with no defect. So you offer the blind is a sacrifice. Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil?

Offer it to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably, says the Lord of Hosts? As I said, this isn't talking about the Sabbath, it's speaking about physical sacrifices and a physical temple. But that principle is a good one to consider. The priests were taking God for granted. You know, they were right there, you know. But so they said, oh God is here, we've got a sacrifice every day. They started taking the best for themselves and basically giving God the leftovers of the animals. Now we don't make animals sacrifice, but have we ever done that with our time and our energy and our priorities when it comes to the Sabbath? I have to admit, there have been times in my life where I probably did. Not intentionally, but it can be easy to do.

The Sabbath comes around every week. It's easy to take that for granted, to unintentionally perhaps treat it somewhat as common, you know, rather than holy time.

God makes a comparison there in Malachi 1 of how the priest showed respect to him in comparing how they respected him with how they respected the governor. He said, no, you're offering this to me.

Go offer it to the governor and see how that makes you feel. They probably didn't come in contact with the governor that often, you know, and he was flesh and blood right there in front of them. You don't take for granted someone that's right there in the room. Now God was right there, but you don't see him and feel him. They wouldn't have dreamed of disrespecting the governor to his face, but in the case of God, familiarity had bred contempt. If you will, turn the page. Well, I'm turning the page to verse 13. Still in Malachi 1, verse 13, he says, Oh, you say, you also say, Oh, what a weariness! You sneer at it, says the eternal, the Lord of hosts, and you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick. Thus you bring an offering. Should I accept this from your hand, says the eternal? But cursed be the deceiver who has in his flock a male and takes a vow, but sacrifices the eternal what is blemished. For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name to be feared among the nations. That's interesting. Should we need God to remind us that he's a great king? And of course, we're not, we don't have, we might have a flock with a male in it. I know some of us do have animals, but we don't have to sacrifice them, but we do bring spiritual sacrifices and our prayer and our praises and how we devote our time.

So I hope that this, this influences every way that we relate to God in our prayer and our daily contact, our daily conduct, how we interact with God's people and certainly how we respect the Sabbath. Now, odd one thing, it can be a challenge because God is a great king, but he's also something else. He's our father. As Paul wrote in Romans 8, we should be able to call him Abba, father. That's like saying daddy. I wonder what it's like, you know, if you're in a royal family, which I guess we all are in a sense, but you go over to England, Prince William sees his grandmother, she's his mom, but she's also the queen. So there's a, you know, how do you know when and how to show that respect? Well, you know, God doesn't want us to regard him with terror or fear, but he also doesn't want us to see the Sabbath as a burden, like the Pharisees did with onerous restrictions and do's and don'ts, but he still wants us to respect it and respect him.

It's his holy time and he's a great king. So our time with him should be more important than our time with any other person. It occurred to me, if we're contemplating whether or not something seems proper for the Sabbath, maybe we should ask if we would think it was proper if we're related to some other person that we wanted to honor and respect. You know, we might want to honor a high political officer or, say, someone that we work with, a favorite grandparent or uncle or aunt, or if you're single, perhaps a certain, you know, young lady or young man that you'd like to get their attention and spend time with. If that's someone that you really liked and respected, we're going to be visiting here at Sabbath Services, how would you dress? You wanted to look good, how would you dress? Because God's here every week. Would you arrive late? Would you consider staying at home because it'd been such a tough week? Would you go to a family activity instead? And I could probably think of a dozen more questions. I could keep going. And some of them could get pretty personal because each of us have had those things come up. Now, I should temper this line of reasoning with the realization that the Sabbath does come every week. And we're in contact with God every day. You know, we shouldn't take either for granted, but we also realize there are some events that come up once in a lifetime. The ones I think of, you know, when my nieces graduated high school, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event for each of them. And I said, you know, I wanted to be there for them. I wasn't there for a lot of their life because I was going to college for 12 years. When I was back in Columbus, they graduated. It's like, I want to be there.

Now, I was fortunate that I could, you know, they have a morning service there. I could go to church in the morning, go downtown to the Vets Memorial Auditorium in the afternoon and be there.

You know, sometimes you have to make a choice, one or the other.

And so not everyone would make the same decision. As I said, that's a personal example. I was fortunate, as I said, I could show respect to God by going to Sabbath services. Some people would say, you shouldn't be going to any of those other things. You know, I will add, you know, my family's sister, they had camp outs pretty regularly. And then once a year, they'd have a pretty big one, and they invited me. And I said, well, you guys camp out every year, you know. It's not a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and the Sabbath is special. You know, so I think once I went up on a late Sunday afternoon and stayed for a couple days. But generally, you know, I wasn't going to miss Sabbath to go on the annual camp out. And I mentioned this, there are special events that come up for all of us, you know, weddings, graduations, funerals, family reunions, and so on. And the Bible doesn't say which you can do on the Sabbath and which not. But I think we'll do well to think of what it says in Malachi 1. God is a great king, you know. How would you treat those things if the governor were going to be here or someone else? God gave us the Sabbath as holy time, during which we meet with Him and meet with His people. So how we respect the Sabbath relates to how we respect God. And having said all this, I certainly hope in my tone, in my words, that I've been showing respect to you, because that's my intention. I realize we're a diverse group, and there are some of you out there that have been keeping the Sabbath as long as or longer than I've even known what it was or been able to say the word. So I'm not meaning to imply that we don't know how to keep the Sabbath, or that any of you have grown disrespectful of God. So please don't take it that way. But I'm reminding of us all of us can sometimes get so familiar with something that we take it for granted. And of course, we can always continually learn and grow.

I was glad I made these statements at the end of my message this morning, and one of the long-time members said, I never get tired of hearing sermons about the Sabbath, and I've heard hundreds of them.

Okay, I'm part of the... I'll join this to the hundreds. It is beneficial to get back and look at the basics now and then. Think about how we worship God. He made the Sabbath a special blessing for us, and He commands us to keep it holy. To do that, He gave us a lot of latitude. Those basic instructions, again, don't work. Assemble together for worship. I'm always hesitant to add anything to the basics that God gives in His Word. So the one thing that I would sort of add is... or a way to look at these things is, you know, when we're keeping the Sabbath and when we're worshiping God, we want to remember to show some respect.