Why We Observe the Sabbath

I mentioned last week that with the once-a-month Bible studies, I want to start going through some very basic teachings, very basic doctrines, for a number of reasons. One is because we need to be reminded of these things from time to time. But there's another reason. I find many times talking to people who grew up in the church, even though they're in their 20s and 30s and their 40s, they know the basic truths, but they did not study the basic truths. Now, there's a difference between knowing them and being able to talk about them, and you believe them.

But actually knowing how to do it here is very, very important. The only reason I say that is because I have seen people live this way for many, many years, believe it, and maybe they're in college or they're at work and they come in contact with someone and they talk to them and they bring out a scripture, and it just changes their whole viewpoint. Well, I never knew that was in the Bible. In fact, we're going to be going through the Sabbath and the Bible study and the sermon.

And next month, what I want to do is I want to go through the five basic places in the Bible that people use to say, you don't have to keep the Sabbath. And we'll talk about those, and I will encourage especially people under 40 to explain that. I'm not going to call on you, okay? But I'll ask you to raise your hand if you want to explain what these passages mean.

So we'll be going through that next month. So it's basic, nothing new, but some things that are very important. We talk about, of course, that usually when we start talking about the Sabbath, we go to the Ten Commandments. This one is the fourth of the Ten Commandments, right? So I keep the Sabbath because it's one of the Ten Commandments. I had a friend of mine who was in the World Wide Church of God, and the World Wide Church of God was invited to send— I think I've told you this story before— invited to send one of the representatives to a meeting of theologians.

And he started to tell me some of the names of the people that were in this meeting, and I'm like, wow, I mean, I've read some of their books. These are people who, you know, they don't say, well, the Hebrew word is, they can tell you—read the entire passage in Hebrew, the entire passage in Greek.

I mean, they know the Bible in amazing ways. And he was sent there, and he just sat there, and he says half the time, they're talking in Greek and Hebrew. And he says, finally, one of them looked at me and said, why is it that your church emphasizes the Sabbath so much? Now, isn't that an interesting question? Where do you go with that? He said, I just prayed, God, please help me. And the answer was Genesis. The answer was, he said, God the Father created all things through Jesus Christ.

That's what it says in Colossians. And they all said, that's true. That's exactly true. They're all agreeing with him. It's nice to get people to agree with you before you say something right that they disagree with. And he said, they said, yes, that's true. He made all things through Jesus Christ. Yes. And Genesis, and let's go there, Genesis 2. So God made all things through Christ, or God the Father made all things through the Word, who is Jesus Christ. And that's also taught in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament.

And this is in Genesis 2, verse 1. Thus the heavens and the earth and all of the hosts of them were finished, and on the seventh day God ended his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had done. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because he rested from all his work, which God had created and made.

He said, so Jesus Christ created everything, the Father created everything through him. Jesus Christ created the Sabbath, and he made it holy, and he rested on that day. And he blessed that day. And he said, and then I just sent him. And there was this long silence, and one of the men looked at him and said, I feel like Festus, you know, in the, not gun smoke for some of you old folks.

I knew someone was going to say that in the book of Acts, when he said to Paul, you almost persuadeth me. He looked at me and said, you almost persuadeth me.

And he says, after that, they all went out and talked and acted like I belonged there. And he said, I was so glad to get out of that meeting because he says, I was so far over my head, but it wasn't interesting. The argument wasn't, well, that's one of the Ten Commandments, and that was part of the ceremonial law. And the ceremonial law, we don't do that, and we agree. We don't do the ceremonial law of the Old Testament, right? We don't sacrifice animals. So that's the way the Sabbath has been done away with. It's part of the ceremonial law. He didn't even go there. He just read from, quoted Genesis 2, verse 2. And they said, that's a good point.

They weren't even good because their argument had nothing to do with that. That's where the Sabbath started, and that's where we have to start when we talk about the Sabbath. It was part of creation, and God sanctified it. He made it holy, and He blessed it. There's a blessing to the seventh day. There's a blessing to it. Now let's go to Exodus 20, and we'll look at... I mean, this is very basic.

Very basic. But it actually forms a foundation for other doctrines, too.

Verse 8. We know this. Many of you have memorized it. The short form or the long form of Exodus, chapter 20.

There's a couple things here that are really important. One is, there is an argument that when you go back to Genesis 1 and 2, all the days started with an evening and a morning. Because we know from Genesis that days start from sundown to sundown in the Bible. But it doesn't say that about the seventh day. So the seventh day has never ended. God is still keeping the seventh day.

It's not a literal day. The problem with the commandment here is, because God created the seventh day and rested on the seventh day, you have to rest on the seventh day. If that explanation of Genesis makes this mean nothing, it's meaningless. Because this command is, it's an actual day. So the actual day is, it's a day. So that argument, when it comes up, well, the seventh day is still going on.

Not according to this. It was a literal day. And God commands then the Israelites to keep that day. That they were to keep it. Now there's a lot of other very interesting things in here. We know that He made it holy. We know that it commemorates God as creator. Genesis, God creates it here. It says, because, right? Verse 11, For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. It's a 24-hour day, and it was created by God. It commemorates Him as creator. If we read this, if you read this every Sabbath, one of the things you would call to your remembrance, because it says, remember, is that, oh yes, this is the day we worship God as creator. In the New Testament, we expand that out. And Jesus Christ is part of that, too. God the Father and Jesus Christ. So this is the day that we worship God as creator, and we understand ourselves as creation.

Okay? We understand ourselves as creation. He then says that everybody is to rest on that day. Even your animals. It is a day of rest. Now we'll talk about where there are some places where Jesus worked on the Sabbath, in healing people, and we'll have to talk about that. Why did He do miracles on the Sabbath? And He explained why He did miracles on the Sabbath.

And they accused Him of being a Sabbath breaker. But it is about God as creator, and you must remember it. It's the only one of the commandments. He says, you've got to remember this one, because you will forget it. You will forget it. What I find amazing, amazingly in... I just read it today... well, in the booklet. I asked all of you to read the booklet.

The Anchor Bible Dictionary, which is considered a top Bible dictionary. When you think of a Bible dictionary, you think of, well, that must be a pretty thick book. No, this one's got five volumes. There's other ones I use. The evangelical, the Baker evangelical Bible dictionary. You say, oh, wow, that one's got to say the Sabbath's wrong, right? All the evangelicals say it's wrong. Not the dictionary. It says, well, there's only four places that would make you think that you don't have to keep the Sabbath. But if you look at the New Testament, it's obvious that they kept it.

Now, that's an interesting argument. There's four places in which there are that seems to say you don't have to keep it, but it's obvious they kept it. That's the extremely considered conservative evangelical Baker evangelical dictionary. So it's not like we're the only ones making this up. There's a realization that there's something very important in the Bible about the Sabbath. But and then we have to understand why they come to the conclusions they do. That's why next time I want to talk about the Scriptures that are used, because we have to understand the arguments.

Because, well, they're making this up or they're no, there's reasons they come to these, these conclusions. If we don't know their reasons, we can be trapped by their reasons, right? Because they're not stupid. The question is, is it biblical? That's the question. So we also know that this is the seventh day Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day. And what this means is this was the first day they had a complete full relationship with God. This was the day that they had their first complete rest with God. Satan didn't show up. Satan was only allowed to come in later.

So they are having a relationship and their rest with God. Now we do know the Ten Commandments are given two different places. The second place is worded differently. And it's interesting because you have to understand the circumstances in which these are given. And this one's worded a little differently because it reveals something about the Sabbath. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 5.

We are going to talk a little bit about the practical side of this today, too. We go through the doctoral aspects, but we can't get so used to this material because many of you have kept the Sabbath for what? 50 years? Wow. Wait a minute. I've been keeping the Sabbath for... I don't want to say that. I've been keeping the Sabbath for 58 years.

It just dawned on me. All you old people keeping the Sabbath for 50 years. That's me. Anyways, let's go to Deuteronomy 5. Boy, I tell you, there are certain days that just... You realize how old you are. Verse 15. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is Deuteronomy 5. As the Lord your God commanded you, six days you shall labor, do all your work.

But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. And once again, you're not to work, your servants aren't to work, your children aren't to work, even your animals aren't to work. You can't just go hire strangers.

Okay, I can't mow the grass on the Sabbath, but I'll hire somebody to mow the grass on the Sabbath. Okay, you can hire strangers who's within your gates. And then verse 15. Now this is part of this issuing of the Ten Commandments.

And remember that you are a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Now why is that added? Remember the first giving of the Sabbath in commandment form. It existed before this, obviously. But the first giving of it in this codified form to a group of people, a large nation of people, it said it drew them back to He was the Creator. This version draws them back to, I am the one who saved you. You were slaves and I saved you. Redemption is part of this message. God is Creator is part of this message. And redemption, salvation is part of this message. And there's some things about the Sabbath we have not, we're going to talk about one of them a little bit today.

We have not emphasized that it's absolutely imperative to understanding fully what this day means. So it's about God is Creator and God as salvation, the one who brings salvation, as Savior. God is redemption. He redeems you. He brings you back out of slavery. Now we know that's a theme of the Days of Unleavened Bread, but that's a theme of the Sabbath also.

That we are to remember at this time. We know that the Israelites were told that it was a sign between them and God, and became one of the great signs that you were an Israelite. You know, it's interesting throughout history, Jews have been really persecuted for three things. And this goes clear back to Antiochus Epiphanes, even during the Roman times, even during the Nazi days.

Here's how they knew you were Jewish. You kept the Sabbath, you wouldn't eat unclean foods, and you were circumcised. Those three things made you evil. Now let's look at just a few places where Jesus teaches about the Sabbath. Then we'll look at one other. And then there's some other things I want to deal with in the Bible study. So we looked at this. Let me reiterate this just for a minute, because I want to make sure we haven't missed something here.

What we've looked at is that the Sabbath pre-exists the giving of the Ten Commandments. The Sabbath was ordained by God, sanctified by God, blessed by God, given to human beings. He gave them to Adam and Eve long before there were Israelites. There weren't any Israelites. Then Israel wasn't born for a long time after that.

It was for humanity. And he gave it to them. And then we know once the Israelites come along that it is to commemorate him as Savior and Creator. And it is a time when we are to avoid all work. And we are to rest, physically rest. But more importantly, we are to spiritually rest. It is a rest in God.

And that rest is very important. We think, well, it's a nap time. Well, that's true, too. You can take a little extra time to physically rest. I slept in this morning because I never get to sleep in it. I didn't have to go to Murfreesboro this morning, so I got to sleep in this morning. That was a wonderful blessing of being part of the Sabbath. But it's more than that if we only see it as that. Let's go to Luke 4. Let's just look at a few places.

Where Jesus is involved in the Sabbath. Luke 4, verse 16.

Because this happens on a Sabbath day, but what's really important here is what He says on the Sabbath day.

So He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. When He opened the book, He found the place where it was written. So He gets up to speak, and it was common in Jewish synagogues that male members of the group that were accepted as part of that synagogue could get up and read part of a scroll.

So He got up and He opens the scroll to Isaiah, and this is what He reads.

Now this is what He says on the Sabbath day. This is how He launches His ministry. Before this, he was just Jesus the carpenter. He gets up and he reads this and he says, this is started. This is going on right now. And Christiologists stared at him.

It says, and he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Today it's started.

On this Sabbath day is the launching of the next stage of redemption.

Of God healing people, not just physically, but spiritually, bringing them back to him.

If you read the rest of this, they knew then what he was saying.

These were people that knew him. Many of them had known him as a child, knew his family. You know what happens at the end of this Sabbath day?

They don't even get to finish church services because they all decide they're going to kill him.

The very people who this Sabbath has been given to, one of the tribes, they're going to kill him. He's saying he's the Messiah.

Now he escaped. It wasn't his time yet, and he escaped.

But that's how he starts his ministry.

He goes into the synagogue where everybody knows him. He's been participating in the synagogue since he was a baby. He goes to the synagogue. He reads from Isaiah and then says, it's started right now. This redemption, this salvation towards humanity, this bringing people to God, so healing, real healing can take place of the person.

We think of healing only in terms of physical healing.

That was a very strange concept to the Hebrew mind.

They saw the whole person as the person.

They didn't understand how the brain works, but it is interesting all through the Old Testament.

Your kidneys could grieve. Your intestines could feel joy. Your heart could leap with... I mean, your body was all one thing. Okay, now we know how the brain works.

But they didn't separate the body from emotions or thinking. It was all one thing.

And he says, I'm here to heal you.

This is how he starts his ministry. Do we truly understand the enormity of salvation?

The enormity of redemption? Our response in holiness?

And our actions and our thoughts or emotions?

Do you observe the Sabbath day in response to God and Jesus Christ's holiness and redemption of you?

Or is it just the day you go to church?

You know, I remember a man one time told me, he said, I said, why did you keep Christmas all those years? And then what caused you to give it up?

He said, well, I kept Christmas for all those years because and he just stopped for a minute and he said, because it's what we did.

So my family kept Christmas for generations. I mean, mom and dad, grandparents, great-grandparents, no one had ever not kept Christmas as far as we had ever known. And we just kept Christmas. We never even questioned. We never thought about it.

For those of you who grew up in the church, you can't have me in the danger of you keep the Sabbath because, well, it's what I do because someone will come along and convince you not to do it.

So what happened? So you have to understand that what this is all about and what it means when God invites you to keep the Sabbath with him, because he invites us to keep the Sabbath with him. How important it is. Mark chapter 3.

Mark chapter 3. Verse 1, he goes into the synagogue again, and a man was there at a withered hand. So they watched him closely whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. Why? You can't work on the Sabbath. I've always thought this was a strange argument because if he healed somebody on the Sabbath, he wasn't the one doing it. Unless you understood he was the Messiah, it was God who was doing it. I mean, this isn't a matter of, oh, okay, let me see, I understand you're blind. It's really not blindness.

You know, a few months ago I had a cataract removed, you know, and I know God helped me through it, right? But I'm not saying that was a miracle. I mean, I think God helped, but God didn't remove it himself. I've had things where God just did himself. He just healed me or healed other people. I've seen it. Then other times he says, man, you've got to figure out what you're going to do.

You're a grown person now. What are you going to do?

We always think if God doesn't heal us, that means he's mad at us. No, it's like your child. Do you fix everything a child's problem has? Or just sometimes you say, it's your problem child. Come on. Why? Because I'll never grow up if we fix everything. God doesn't fix everything. Okay, so I had cataract surgery. How many have had cataract surgery?

That is a weird experience. Some of you know what it's like. I hope none of you have to go through that. I mean, it's not painful. It's just strange. Anyways, so the man's blind. This power's coming from God. This isn't some surgery that's about to be done. This power's from God. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, step forward, then he said to them, is it lawful in the Sabbath day to do good or do evil to save life or kill? Well, they can't argue that, especially if you're a Pharisee. Pharisees had all kinds of what you can do on the Sabbath, what you can't do on the Sabbath. And saving life was an important part of Sabbath work, you know, in terms of, okay, if my neighbor over here is bleeding to death, I can go patch him up.

But they kept silent. And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their heart, he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out his hand and restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him that they might destroy him. We do know that they were jealous of his power. But here's the issue that they were having. What is allowed, what work is allowed on the Sabbath? Now, we're going to talk about this in a little more detail in a minute. But whenever you and I do work on the Sabbath, or any activity on the Sabbath, we have some questions we have to ask. Does this activity help me, or does it glorify God?

We can come up with all kinds of activities that we would want to do on the Sabbath and give all kinds of reasons. But the question is, does it glorify God? Does this activity help my family?

I mean, yes, it may help somebody else. Good. There are times we need to help people. But it's always in the context of glorifying God.

Is it an example that would help people understand and glorify God?

You know, it's interesting. The Pharisees, their list of things you could not do and could do on the Sabbath was enormous. I could speak for the next 45 minutes just describing things that at the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had already written down. Like, you could throw a grape in the air and catch it in your mouth, and that was okay because you were eating. If you threw the grape in the air and caught it with the other hand, you'd done work. You couldn't mail a letter on Wednesday because it may be traveling on the Sabbath. Now, that one I find hilarious because that would only be true if you lived in a village. I mean, the Roman mail system wasn't—you think ours isn't efficient? Can you imagine sending mail a thousand miles by wagon? It may be months before it gets there. So, okay, I can never send a letter to—I mean, Paul was breaking the Sabbath every time he sent a letter someplace because it may be—the post may be carrying it that day.

The women, I like this one, you can't look in the mirror in the Sabbath because you may see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out and that would be work.

I don't know. That one definitely was made up by men. There weren't women consulted in that one.

But this is why Jesus said you strain in a gnat and swallow a camel.

You're missing the point of the Sabbath. But—and I won't go there, but there's a couple of places where Jesus brings up the ox and the ditch. And the Pharisees always back down when he brings that one up. And there's a reason why.

That was a—there were just certain—you know, there's certain religious arguments all the time. That was a religious argument inside of Judaism in the first century. Judaism has always been—what's the old saying? If you have six Jews in a room—I mean, this is what Jews say about themselves. You have seven opinions. And they're making a point. They love to argue religion.

That's what they do. Now, I'm not saying every Jew is like that. I've met Jews who are totally irreligious. But I mean, it's sort of their history. And you go into the first century, and there are all kinds of arguments. What's a legitimate divorce? What isn't? There are things that you and I still argue about today. But the Sabbath ones were always very interesting, you know, what you could do, what you can't do, what is work, what is not work.

And they argued and argued. And the Pharisees said, if an animal falls in the ditch, you can get it out. Because why? They always had support.

There are Old Testament commands to take care of your animals. It is actually considered a very rotten, terrible person that doesn't take care of their animals in the Old Testament.

That human beings, given dominion over the earth, have a responsibility to take care of their animals. Of course, in an agricultural society, there was a great deal of concern about their animals.

The Essenes, who are another group, they're not mentioned in the New Testament, but they were, that was their heyday as a group during the New Testament. The Essenes argued, you can get a person out of a ditch, but not an animal. You have to leave them until the Sabbath is over, even though if they die or break a leg and then you have to kill them, you cannot get an animal out. That's too much work. So when Jesus always uses that, the Pharisees back off because he's using their argument. You know, let's say, oh, well, okay, what are we going to do? Telling these wrong? So he's sort of playing it against them. But the point is, kindness. Kindness is something we should do. I mean, if you saw your neighbor's cow with their neck stuck in the barbed wire, you would go help them on the Sabbath. Or at least call them or do something, right?

As I said that, I shouldn't tell this story.

We were out, me and my son-in-law and all the young men in the family, seeing what a drone would do. And then we flew it out. Look how far it goes! We flew it over the neighbor's yard, I mean, field out there. All of a sudden, all the cows started to run, and then we realized they could hear it. It was way... So all of a sudden, we pulled it back as we watched the stampede run around. Fortunately, no cows were hurt in this endeavor. We never thought you could hear it, right? It's an odd sound, even though it's 100 feet in the air. And we stampeded the neighbor's cows with... They all stopped running, and it was okay. None of them died of a heart attack. It was okay.

We are called to do good on the Sabbath. Now, we have to be careful. I've known people that they can define good as anything, and they have a way to never work... You know, they work all day long on the Sabbath. Every Sabbath, because they're doing good. A point I want to bring out, and then I'm going to go into some practical things and wrap it up so we can take a break and then have the Bible study. But here's the point that's very, very vital that we do not emphasize that we should. Jesus didn't die on a Friday and resurrected on a Sunday. It's not possible. He said the proof, the only proof that He was the Messiah, He would be in the ground three days and three nights, and I don't care how you add it up. From Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, you can't get three days and three nights. Some will say, well, it's parts of days and nights, okay? Well, you get parts of three days, you can't get parts of three nights. And He said three days and three nights, okay? It is the proof He is the Messiah. If you look at when He died and how that happened in the Passover, the first day of 11 bread, He was resurrected late Saturday afternoon.

Jesus was resurrected on the Sabbath. Why would He bless the Sabbath at the very beginning?

Why would He tell ancient Israel, this is about redemption. When would you commit the greatest act of redemption in the history of humanity? It commemorates that. You and I come together, every Sabbath, to commemorate the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

I was talking to a man this week. We were just talking about different things. He said, he's one of the speakers, he said, I want to give a message on the three days and three nights. So, guess what we're going to be getting here? We're going to go through that. He's going to go through them. That is so important. If Jesus wasn't resurrected on Sunday morning, when was He resurrected? Why is it on Sunday morning? I mean, He, they come in Sunday morning before it's even sun up. And it's like, where is He? He's gone. Because He'd already been resurrected. Jesus was resurrected on the Sabbath towards the end of it. Three days and three nights exactly from when He died. Okay? You know how important that is? And I, you know, I've never read an article on that in any of the churches of God that I can think of. And we emphasize the three days and three nights, but how important that is. We know when He was resurrected about what time.

So, we're going to be talking about that too here in the next couple of months.

Because we need to understand why this is important. This isn't just a day to go to church.

It is a day ordained by God and carried out through history.

In fact, there's a prophetic message in the Sabbath day. We'll get into that in just a minute here. So what do we do to keep the Sabbath correct? Well, first of all, you got to prepare for the Sabbath. You got to think about preparing for the Sabbath throughout the week. You got to take some time Friday to prepare for the Sabbath. So that, you know, Friday night isn't just, I just spent, you know, women sometimes, I just spent two hours cooking the food for everybody. You know what? Either help her or don't expect such a fancy meal on Friday night.

You know, I have literally, this is embarrassing over the years, I've had this happen in 10 years, but I've actually had men come up to me and say, well, you know, I didn't bring a thing from the potluck because I can't work on the Sabbath. But you're staying from the potluck, yes, but that's women's job. I've had that happen probably four or five times. None of them were married, by the way. There was a reason they weren't married. They just didn't get it, okay?

Wait a minute. Somebody has to feed everybody. But yeah, women do that. Men don't work on the Sabbath. Oh, so your animals are supposed to not work on the Sabbath, but the women can. Now, there are certain work that's done on the Sabbath, right? We know that for purposes and reasons. Jesus talked about that. And we'll talk about that some in the Bible study. But we need to do what we can beforehand, and we need to understand that sometimes the women can do an excess amount of work on the Sabbath simply because, I mean, they're taking care of so many things that have to do with the family. And some things you just let go until Saturday night. It's okay. I know that that goes against the nature of certain people. You know, I can't let it go. I can't. I can't. I can't. No, the kids didn't make their beds. That's okay. Shut the door. No, no, I have why. My wife's German. I understand. Beds must be made. Or the entire cosmos is out of sync. Who knows what's going to... There may be an earthquake if I don't make their beds. No, no.

They didn't make their beds. That's okay. Let it go until, you know, you made our bed. That's enough. You did what you felt you had to do. Leave the beds alone. And we can also tell them you didn't make your beds on the Sabbath, which you have to make your bed every day. It only takes you 30 seconds. So, yeah, there's no dessert tonight. You know, because Mom isn't your slave on the Sabbath.

You know, she's not your slave.

Participate, of course. A second thing is in the Holy Convocation. Leviticus 23.3 talks about that, Holy Convocation. That is a meeting. We are commanded here to meet.

We are to come together as the people of God. The Sabbath isn't something we just do by ourselves.

Now, some people... That's why I feel so bad for so many of the people who can only make it now, once a month, or they're just shut in so they can't make it at all. Because I know how hard it is for them to do that. They want to be here because this has been part of their lives. It is part of their lives. A Holy Convocation. But, you know, for those of us who can make it, we need to be here. And let me just say this. If it is a Holy Convocation, then it is only by invitation by God. God has commanded you to be here. To stay home and watch it on the webcast, simply because it's convenient, means you do not understand the full meaning of the Sabbath.

If you do it just because it's convenient. Now, there's reasons to do it, right? Legitimate reasons to stay home and watch it. Maybe you're sick, maybe you're traveling, and there's no place to go. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to do that. But just because it's easier to sit there in your pajamas and drink coffee watching the sermon is not keeping the Sabbath.

Or, well, it's too hard with children. It's too hard with children. Your children were invited, too. Our children are invited also to be part of this.

You know, God did say, I'll take you, but leave your kids behind.

So, when we won't bring our children because, well, it's too much work. I know Kim and I grew up in the church. I can remember playing church during the week. That's how my mom actually played church three times a week at the exact time church was to teach us how to be in church.

And so it was so normal to go to church and sit there. Because why? Well, three times a week we did this. Well, she would listen to a sermon, study her Bible, and we would be sitting there doing things that she gave us to do. That's why we have a mother's room.

And, you know, the mother's room is back up and running again. It's hard. I mean, I remember my wife saying to me, Gary, I haven't heard a sermon in two years.

You know, at the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the greatest things is when I would take the kids to the parents' room and she would actually have a chance to listen to a sermon. It's okay. Sometimes they cry. It's okay. They're invited to be here.

And so we can take them out. We can take care of it. We could... It's okay. But I ask you, how can you teach a child that the Sabbath is important if you don't bring them? Why are you teaching a child? It's not important. It's more fun to sit at home, or you can just sit there and play with your trucks, or do your coloring book, or whatever, and not come. COVID has... You know, the whole COVID thing was so weird because no one knew what to do.

I mean, when they shut down and would even let us in the building, you know, for what? Two and a half months, whatever it was. And I couldn't rent a building, so we had to always do it online. I tell people, that was us going to the catacombs.

Now, the early Christians in Rome had to go hide out in the catacombs because if they walked down the street, they were a whole lot worse off than they are. I mean, they were basically house churches. If they walked down the street to go to a church, a house where there was like 10 families that met, they'd be arrested. We just couldn't go anyplace.

So we did the best we could, and then as soon as we got back in here, we got back in here. And then we had to figure out how to handle everything. And it was not easy. What biblical principles did you apply? Because we couldn't give up the Sabbath.

We had to have some kind of holy convocation. But the webcast was only a stopgap measure to deal with a new situation. It was never meant to be the way to participate in the holy congregate meeting assembly, simply because it was the easiest way to do it. It was never meant that way.

It was simply, we have things we have to deal with. Now we keep it because it is so helpful to the sick. It is so helpful to those 20 or 30 people who are shut-ins. We want to give it to them, but it can't ever become an excuse. It can never become an excuse. Hebrews 10.

Hebrews 10 verse 24.

Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another in so much more as you see the day approaching.

We can't ignore this as part of our holy Sabbath day keeping.

When we come here, too, that's why there has to be peace here.

There has to be peace. We can't come here to fight a war.

Sometimes I've been in a congregation where it just seems like everybody was fighting all the time. That's not the Sabbath. That's not the Sabbath. That's what the Sabbath is all about.

It is about coming here and getting some rest, spiritual rest, and rest with each other.

Someone did ask me, why did I cancel services a couple times during the epidemic?

One time in Murfreesboro, we had 49 people at church, 29 people got it at church, and 20 people were exposed. And yes, we didn't have services the next week.

And I know I've received some condemnation for that. Somehow I broke God's holy Sabbath day.

I don't know. In the Old Testament, there was a type of leprosy that you didn't know if it was contagious until time went by. And even if you had a stain on your clothes, you had to stay out of the congregation until a certain period of time went by to make sure that you weren't contagious.

Yeah, so I just applied the principle. 29 people sick, 20 more exposed. We're going to wait a week and let this go bow over. Which happened when we came back. No one got it. Well, they got it from just other places. They didn't get it from being there. Yeah, and sometimes we, sometimes the overseers of the church have to make those kinds of decisions. They're never easy, but we have to make them. I only say that because the last couple years have been very interesting as we among ourselves try to debate what to do all the time. But even people that weren't part of our congregation I got attacked from, it was just really strange.

That's okay. You know, these are the reasons I make my decisions. It was based on the Bible, and I would make it again. I wasn't doing it with the Holy Sabbath day. We just went back to the catacombs for a week. That's all we did. And then we came back here. There's a lot of things that we learned from the Bible about how to keep the Sabbath day. Nehemiah, they were basically commanded, don't buy and sell on the Sabbath. I mean, we're not to go out and do our shopping on the Sabbath. We're not to go out and, you know, okay, let's go spend two hours at Walmart on the Sabbath. Isaiah 58. Because this is the summation then of how we make our decisions. You know what's really amazing about the Sabbath day in the Bible? It's how few instructions there actually are.

Don't work. We have to do some work, right? I mean, you have to pour the cereal into the bowl, right? You know, or scramble the eggs or something. I mean, there's some work that has to be done on the Sabbath. You have to go take a shower and get dressed. I mean, but so there's these general instructions. And then there's general instructions. Don't go hiring people on the Sabbath. Don't go do, you know, all your money making on the Sabbath. This is the good time to try to figure out where you should invest your stocks. Okay.

I mean, if you're investing your stocks on the Sabbath, it's probably gonna fail.

But there are principles here that are so important. Isaiah 58 verse 13.

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, you don't trample on it. You keep it, but you keep it in a way in which you're really not keeping it. Now, there's two ways to do that. One is being doing whatever you want on the Sabbath. The other is making it too strict.

You can make the Sabbath so strict. It is absolutely terrible. You know, absolutely terrible.

I have no problem taking my grandkids. I don't get to do it hardly ever. In fact, I haven't for years.

Taking my grandkids to the park on the Sabbath and swinging on the swings. That's with them.

I'm not breaking the Sabbath.

It's a special day. Now, we go to church. We eat meals together. We do all the other things we're supposed to do on this day. It's a God-centered day. So we can do it both ways. We can do it by just trampling all over it, or we can do it by making it so strict, it loses its meaning. That's what the Pharisees did. So he goes, he says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath by doing your pleasure on my holy day, it's His. He made it, but He made it for us. Jesus even says that.

Sabbath wasn't made. You know, man wasn't made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man.

God doesn't actually need to rest, okay? He's giving us an example. He doesn't need it. God says, I'm tired. I made everything. I need to take a nap. Is that why He created the Sabbath?

It's made for us. He says, and call the Sabbath a delight. Somewhere in my life, I started that journey that even it happened as a child, seven, eight years old, where it's like, you know, this is special. I don't like sometimes the restrictions of it, but I do like it in another way. I do like it that I don't have to do my homework on this day. It was freedom, absolute freedom. I don't have to do my homework on Friday night and Saturday. This is wonderful. I mean, for a seven-year-old, that's about as good as life gets, right? He says, and you call it a delight. The holy day of the Lord, honorable. This is a good thing. And you shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasure. They're speaking even your own words.

And we talk on the Sabbath. Oh, how things go on. Who are you cheering for at the Super Bowl tomorrow? Okay. But you know, you stand there and you talk an hour talking about the Super Bowl. You've probably missed something, right, on what this day means. So we have chitchat, we do, but we're also always being brought back and centered on God in His way. That's why the Holy Cong... when we come together, the Holy Assembly cannot be a time of arguing and fighting.

Of bringing up our disagreements. I mean, we can fight over the Bible, right? People can fight over anything. Just open the Bible and start opening a scripture. People argue over it. That can't be what the Sabbath is about. He said, he goes on, he says, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord.

And then he gives this promise. He says, that will cause you to write on the high heels of the earth. And this is ancient Israel. Feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father. The mouth of the Lord is spoken. He says, if you do this, they would receive all kinds of blessings. How much more is that for us? How much more is that for us?