Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Bible, guys.

Chris:
Today is Friday, and I got to tell you, I’m going to miss being with you, Wesley.

Wesley:
Yeah, this is the last day.

Chris:
We have had a great time. Jeff’s been out of pocket. Of course, we miss Jeff when he’s gone.

Wesley:
And when I’m gone, hopefully you miss me.

Chris:
But we’ve really had a great time with Wesley and I this week. And we’ve been covering a lot of the Old Testament stuff. And today we’re skipping all the way to Leviticus. But before we do that, Wesley, we have our Friday segment.

Wesley:
We have the most epic segment of all. This is the segment, What Made Chris Mad This Week? This is probably one of our most loved segments that we have here.

Chris:
Well, just keep in mind, Wesley, I’m not an angry guy. Right? So being mad doesn’t mean that I walk around angry. It means that I get mad for the people of the world. I’m a servant of the people, Wesley. And by the way, I didn’t even discover that until we started doing this segment. I realized that the 95% of the things that make me mad, I get mad on behalf of someone else. It’s not even from my experience. Like if I have a, in fact, this just happened. This is not what made me mad, but this is an example of what I mean is that we went to a restaurant, my daughter and I, and my daughter went to go order the pizza. And this particular waitress said, she said, to be honest with you, the pizza is not that great here. And then she goes, oh you sold me. I have the chicken fingers. Yeah, and then I was so impressed. I was delighted I was elated. Yeah, and I said, you know what if I was a server here? I said I honestly would encourage every server to tell everybody that the pizza wasn’t good So that eventually it would make it all the way up to corporate and they’d say they’d be forced to say this pizza isn’t selling well So therefore let’s go ahead and change the rules recipe, change the recipe or change the menu item. Because like, that was brilliant to me that elated to me. That was elating to me. And the reason why is because I really truly do love that idea of benefiting the people in general. Anyway, so here’s what made me mad this week. And by the way, uh, it is something personal that happened just to me, but it does have everything to do with customer service. So, um, I have, I have this thing in my spine where it’s preventing me from, uh, not anymore, but it goes, it comes and goes, but I’ve got, uh, some, some, uh, bulging discs in my spine. So my right hand was too, it was, it was hurting too much my arm. And so I couldn’t cut the grass. So my daughter Tori couldn’t cut it and Stephen’s allergic and so is Liz. So I thought to myself, what am I going to do? So for the first time ever in the history, listen to me, Wesley, 33 years of marriage, for the first time in the history of my life, I called a lawn company.

Wesley:
Oh, wow.

Chris:
And landscaping and cutting the lawn is sort of my thing. My lawn looks good, right? It’s like, it’s sort of like, I wouldn’t say perfect, but like, it’s pretty dang good. Right. And so I chopped all around, I found a company and it was decently long, but I gave him explicit instructions, please take care of my lawn. So I, anyway, I go to work, I come back home and these guys, Wesley, tore my lawn

Wesley:
Oh, no. Did they cut it super low?

Chris:
Everything that could be bad was bad. And I hate to say this because it’s it’s like stereotypes. But when they told me that their lawn service was from a different part of town. Yeah. I thought to myself, huh? Like there was only there’s there’s like sort of two schools of thought. Yeah. Right. Either a like I’ve seen like people mow down fields in that part of town where the grass clumps on the top. Yeah. It looks like a piece of garbage. Right. Because that’s good enough for that side of town. But then there’s another school of thought that says, wait a minute, Uh, people from that side of town, if they come to my side of town, uh, it’s a little bit nicer than their side of town. Uh, maybe they’ll, maybe they work in a pristine manner because they know that, you know, these guys pay well and everything else. So I thought, well, there’s two schools of thought. Well, guess what? It was the first school of thought. They came and tore everything up. They cut it too low. They burned the lawn where it was like, it was all like, where it was like plush green. Now it’s like, you know, brown because they cut it too low. And then they chipped spots. They, they, they, they actually like, uh, uh, like, like hacked up the edges and then left like layers, layers of, they didn’t clean up the clippings. Oh no. Okay. It was just like this massive amount of clippings. They didn’t even try to go over it twice. Like, you know, like if there’s clippings that you can like mulch it. Yeah. Right. So anyway, uh, so I basically come home. I’m horrified. And so my, my thing that made me mad was that, but it also made me mad for the customer service. Yeah. Side of things. Right. So it’s like, what kind of person sends a company to just destroy a lawn? Because by the way, even though my lawn was lawn, they looked at it and thought to themselves, holy crud, this guy keeps a good lawn. Yeah. So let’s go ahead and try to cut it well.

Wesley:
They thought, we’re going to make this better.

Chris:
They don’t give a one ounce of care. They literally thought to themselves, I do not care whether this customer cancels or complains. Anyway, the bottom line is good customer care is hard to find. And people who disregard good customer care, they don’t care about anything else other than getting to the end of that day and getting their own paycheck. They can care less about the customer. That’s what made me mad.

Wesley:
So, if you would like to cut Chris’s grass, dial 1-555.

Chris:
Well, after that speech, people are fearful to cut my grass, right? I’m too afraid to live up to his expectations.

Wesley:
Yeah, we’ve had some bad, and we’ve got a good guy now, but we’ve had some bad ones in the past.

Chris:
Oh, I’m telling you what, man. I can’t even think of a thing that made me more angry, and I’m not even kidding when I say this, in the past six months. Yeah. Like, that made me more angry than anything has in the past six months.

Wesley:
Yeah, because depending on what they did, now you have to go back and either plant grass seeds, fertilize, like do something. I don’t know.

Chris:
Right. Well, let’s just say Chris was not happy. Yeah. So anyway, good customer service people. Yes. Let’s care about the customer All right. Let’s move on Leviticus. So we’re jumping from Exodus all the way to Leviticus 16 There’s a lot of Levitical law, right? Yeah, so God gave, you know, you know a lot of different instructions, and we’re skipping over a lot of that. Instructions for priestly conduct, instructions for, you know, beginning works and instructions for the people, instructions for purification after childbirth, serious skin disease instructions, all these different Levitical law instructions, treatment for contaminated clothing, all these different things. And so we’re going to skip to Leviticus 16 verses 29 through 34.

Wesley:
Yes. So it says on the 10th day of the appointed month in early autumn, you must deny yourselves. Neither native-born Israelites nor foreigners living among you may do any kind of work. This is a permanent law for you. On that day, offerings of purification will be made for you, and you will be purified in the Lord’s presence from all your sins. Verse 31. It will be a Sabbath day of complete rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. This is a permanent law for you. In future generations, the purification ceremony will be performed by the priest who has been anointed and ordained to serve as high priest in place of his ancestor Aaron. He will put on the holy linen garments and purify the most holy place, the tabernacle, the altar, the priests, and the entire congregation. This is a permanent law for you, to purify the people of Israel from their sins, making them right with the Lord once each year.

Chris:
Yep, there it is. So it’s a Sabbath day scripture, right? And so this is a more specific instructions on, and by the way, we skipped over, even before last podcast, very detailed instructions on what to do or not to do on the Sabbath. Now, there’s a lot of controversial topic, even with major religions in the world. about Sabbath, right? So, we all know that, you know, I remember my aunt got sort of locked into, you know, this idea of the Sabbath has to be Saturday, right? And there are entire, you know, religions out there that say, you know, that the, I’ve even seen a billboard that says that Sunday’s the mark of the beast. Oh, wow.

Wesley:
Have you ever seen that? No, I’ve never seen that one.

Chris:
Yeah, yeah. Put out by a certain group, right? Yeah. And they say that, you know, it’s the mark of the beast. And so not only do they say that, hey, we don’t believe that Sunday can be a Sabbath, but what they’re saying is, you’re going to hell. It’ll lead you straight to hell. because you’ve disobeyed and not honored this calendar day as Sabbath, being Saturday. So do you have any initial thoughts on that?

Wesley:
Well, the thing that pops in mind is verse 31. It says, it will be a Sabbath day of complete rest for you. Right. So God created this Sabbath day for us, but I think In modern day times, we view it as the other way around. Right. Which there’s a scripture that actually talks about that. But, you know, the Sabbath day was created for us so that we could reflect on the good things that God did. When you go back to Genesis 1 and 1, it talks about how in the beginning God made the heavens and the earth. Then it goes all the way down. When we get to the last day, It was when we say use the word rest there in Genesis. It’s more of the fact not that God was tired and you know, he was exhausted and had to lay on the sofa and I created the heavens and the earth and the planet and animals and I am utterly exhausted. It was more so that God was reflecting on the good that he made. So that’s kind of what that Sabbath means to kind of reflect on what God has done in your life. Remember the good things that He’s done. Remember the blessings. Remember to spend time with Him. That’s why we go to church and things like that. So that’s kind of the point of the Sabbath. It was given for our benefit, not the other way around.

Chris:
Right. And Jesus himself said that, because Jesus, you know, in the New Testament, he was healing somebody, right? And they were really upset because he was healing somebody on the Sabbath. And then Jesus asked him a question and said, well, wait a minute. You know, you say not to work on a Sabbath, but if a sheep falls into a pit, which one of you would leave it in that pit? Which one of you would not lean over and pull it out of the pit? Right? He says that the Sabbath was created for man. The man wasn’t created for the Sabbath. The Sabbath isn’t all, you know, all binding because, and we have to remember this too, that they created rules around the rules, right? So what they would say is they would say, well, what are the semantics of work, right? And they actually had a number of steps that they had determined was too many steps. And so they would not only honor the Sabbath, and they were doing it out of good intentions, I think, but they were actually so particular about the Sabbath that, hang on a second, So they were so particular about the Sabbath that they implemented their own rules on top of the rules as law. And so Jesus was saying, no, no, no, no, listen, it’s lawful for me to heal on the Sabbath. You’re considering it work. But God didn’t say that, right? And so the bottom line is, well, let’s go back to the idea of Saturday versus Sunday. So we get our Sunday because Jesus was raised on a Sunday, right? So he dies just a few hours before Friday ends. And people think sometimes he was in the grave for 72 hours, but actually the scripture is very clear that at the ninth hour, he cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost right at 3 p.m. So 6 p.m. started a new day, right? And so what he does is he goes ahead and dies, and then he’s only in the grave for three hours on Friday, he’s in the grave for all of Saturday, and then it says very early, in the day on Sunday, which means while it was still dark out, you know, so it’s only six hours into, you know, the new day, probably, he raises from the grave. And that’s why we honor our Sabbath on Sundays. The principle, you know, Paul says it’s the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. We are to honor a Sabbath. So it’s one in seven, right? So God rests on the Sabbath day. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making Saturday your Sabbath. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making Sunday your Sabbath. But I do think it’s wrong to say that if it’s anything besides Saturday, it’s the mark of the beast.

Wesley:
Yeah, that’s taking it a bit far. As you’re talking about this, I think of another scripture, completely unrelated, but that talks about prayer and going into your prayer closet. Yes. Kind of the same concept in that God can hear your prayers, even if you don’t literally go into a closet and shut the door, God can still hear your prayers. It was more so like symbolism or a metaphor, not that Oh, I can’t be heard by God unless I’m sitting literally in a closet. We used to have a family member like that who, it was more so a family member my mother knew of that literally believed that, that, you know, you, if you prayed, you had to go into the closet or like God wasn’t going to hear you, you know, because of what the reference used in the Bible in going into your prayer closet. So yeah, yeah. It’s kind of the same concept a little bit here, right? Yeah. With the Sabbath.

Chris:
Yeah, so to think that we have to, think about this. So there’s Levitical law. We skipped over, you know, 15 chapters. Moses had come down from the, you know, the mountain of Sinai with 10 commandments. And then when there was a golden calf, he threw the commandments, the tablets on the calf, right? And we’re actually, I’m sorry, that was the movie. That’s so funny. The scripture actually says he threw them at the foot of the mountain and broke them. Okay. So God actually gave him a replacement of the covenant. Now we skipped over that, but basically he went back up the mountain, got replacement tablets, and then set them in the ark of the covenant. So we know that for sure. But part of the scripture that we skipped over is that God eventually gave Moses 613 commandments. So there’s 613 precepts. So there’s 248 thou shouts, there’s 365 thou shout nots, making up 613 precepts. So there’s a bunch of laws and God is very detailed. God is very specific. So when they talk about the law of Moses, they’re not talking about 10 commandments. They’re talking about 613 of them, right? Now what’s interesting is, is that Somehow, people believe it has to be Saturday, and it has to be this exact time frame as the Jewish custom. And yet, we don’t follow any other Jewish custom in the litical law. Not even one. Not even a single one. And there are 613 rules to follow. Right? You know, even right here it says there would be a purification ceremony performed by the priests who are anointed to anoint and serve as high priests. You know, and that’s directly connected to the Sabbath passage. Right? And yet, those who insist that it has to be on a certain day, they don’t do that ceremony. Right? And so all these other things that are under the Levitical law, Jesus says, we’re not under the law. Paul says, we’re not under the law. Jesus said, he’s not abolishing the law. He came to fulfill the law. So therefore we still honor our father and our mother. We still have no graven image, right? But it translates into our modern day. Remember the Sabbath day, keeping it holy, we are given the instruction to work six days and rest for one. right? So we are not to work. And so I would say of all the Ten Commandments, wouldn’t you agree that the Sabbath, honoring the Sabbath is probably the one that we violate the most?

Wesley:
Yeah. Yeah. I think people don’t think much of it. from a society perspective, it’s just another day off from work. You know, that’s how society views it. You have Saturday and Sunday, you know, maybe Saturday you clean the house and Sunday you go on your boat or to the beach or something. You know, that’s kind of how society views it. But as mentioned, God gives guidance. Now, what would you say to the person who’s trying to figure out this sabbath thing and they’re thinking like well what is acceptable or not acceptable on a sabbath because there’s that’s like a hot button topic in the christian world of you know what you should do or shouldn’t do on the the sabbath what would you say to that brand new christian just accepted Christ yesterday?

Chris:
Yeah, I would say the principle is that you are to pick one in seven days to rest. And so therefore, whatever your schedule allows in this modern society, if you work on Sundays, then make Monday your Sabbath, right? So for 30 years, I worked at churches where Monday was the day off. And so Monday was my Sabbath, because Sunday is a really hectic time.

Wesley:
And I think most people don’t understand that for pastors. Sunday is a work day for us. So it’s a worship day for you, but it’s a work day for us.

Chris:
And it’s mentally exhausting and emotionally exhausting, and in many other ways, physically exhausting. So, therefore, I used to make Mondays my Sabbath, but then Heritage works on Mondays, right? And some people would say, oh, it’s Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon. That’s fine. But I don’t normally, you know, so I try to… That’s not a normal rhythm that you have. My Sabbath varies because my job varies, but I will make sure to have a time of rest. So I would give that advice. I would say make sure that you’re not working and that you’re relaxing and you’re detaching. Because I heard a sermon one time that said this, and this was one of the coolest things I’ve heard. And that is, man is not made to rest from work. Man was created in the book of Genesis to work from rest. Right? So think about that. Yeah. So, so it’s like, so it’s like, um, uh, God, God rested. Right. So God created Adam on the sixth day. And then what did he do on the seventh day? Rested. Right. So man is created. And what is the first thing that man does? Rests. Yeah. And then, then he goes to work. So man wasn’t created to rest from work. He was created to, uh, to work from a state of rest.

Wesley:
Yeah.

Chris:
And so it’s like, so we need to make rest a priority so that from that overflow of rest, we have enough energy to work. We don’t just work ourselves to the bone to the point where we’re like, man, we gotta take a break. And it’s never a sufficient break.

Wesley:
And that rest and reflection allows you to operate at your best. That’s the thing. It’s kind of like, that’s how you’re recharged. That’s how you feel spiritually as you’re maybe taking that Sabbath and praying and reading God’s word or going to church. So it’s really rejuvenating you. But that’s the part that we typically X out of our lives because we’re on to the next thing.

Chris:
Right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. So, hey, listen, that looks like it’s about our time. Do you have any other last thoughts?

Wesley:
Yeah, no, I think this was great.

Chris:
Yeah, I would just say if you don’t rest one and seven, if you don’t detach and do whatever it is that you could do to make sure that you’re emotionally and physically resting, and not to mention, consecrate that time for the Lord and your relationship with the Lord, because that’s the purpose of the Sabbath. I would say if you’re not doing that, then find some time in your schedule, because you will not regret it. It’s a biblical principle, and you are made to operate that way. So, all right. Well, hey, listen, that is our time. And so hopefully we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.