Guarding The Gates of the Sabbath - Part Two

My husband and I get so excited when the sun sets on Friday evenings and we can "shut the gates" when it comes to our home and our relationship with each other and our God.  It's so freeing to know that for the next 24 hours, we are going to shut the world out of our home and our lives.  Then, we get to welcome our Lord Jesus to spend time with us on His holy day.  By so doing, we are "guarding the gates and sanctifying the Sabbath day".

God led Nehemiah to use this phrase in Nehemiah 13:19-22.  "So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath.  Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.  Then I warned them, and said to them, 'Why do you spend the night around the wall?  If you do so again, I will lay hands on you!'  From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath.  And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should go and guard the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day."

So as a Christian, how are you doing at "guarding the gates" of God's seventh-day Sabbath?  How are you doing at "sanctifying the Sabbath day" - keeping it holy, different and set apart from the other 6 days of the week?  This definitely goes counter-culture in today's society as well as in today's evangelical churches.  As in Nehemiah's day, the merchants are outside "the gates" (meaning our homes) on the Sabbath day -
constantly calling us to "open the gates" in order to come out and buy their goods.  However, by "opening those gates", the world is able to sneak inside our homes through our phones, televisions, radios, newspapers, etc.  It is a constant conscious decision on our part to turn it all off in order to "guard the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day".

So, what is the benefit to you?  1) You will be walking in obedience to the Word of God, 2) You will grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, 3) You will get REST and RELAXATION for 24 hours EVERY WEEK, and 4) You will have peace - Sabbath Peace.  What a gift from God!

                                     "SHABBAT SHALOM!"