Regeneration; Sabbath Day- TiL #regeneration #Sabbath

Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast. Thank you for joining us this evening. Tonight, we have two topics to talk about.

What does regeneration mean in Matthew chapter 19, verse 28? And then also, the

Sabbath. The difference between a Seventh -day Adventist understanding and a

Presbyterian view. Stick with us. Welcome back.

Dan, I need a bit more caffeine. I feel like I need a little bit more energy for this podcast tonight.

Well, for me, for every podcast. I want to liven things up.

But thank you for watching. The comment line is open. Let me click on that. Please, if you have a question, we'd love to try to answer that question, critique.

We'd love to hear those and make corrections on ourselves. If you have a question about the

Bible or church or anything else like that, if we can pray for you, we'd love to be able to pray for you or just say hello.

We'd love to hear from you. But thank you for watching, Dan. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good.

I felt a little rough earlier today, but I am stronger now.

So, by the way, Happy New Year. Happy New Year. It is

New Year's Day 2024. We're going to have to get used to writing 2024.

Good evening. Brother Phillip lives in my area. Thank you for watching.

And Phillip is actually the one who made my Truth in Love Network hat.

And he also engraved our beard brushes. Did you finally get your beard brush? We'll say no.

I know you received it. I'm sure it's somewhere. I did find that little hammer. But no,

I do have one. Today was not the day for me to get up and do beard brush stuff.

I know you got the hammer because Becky wonderfully made a tree ornament out of it and made a little picture for us.

Saying Merry Christmas from the Truth in Love Network. That was a wonderful idea with a little hammer.

And thank you, Phillip, for engraving those beard brushes for the guys. I think a lot of them really enjoyed it.

I know I appreciated it. Let's jump into it again. Say hello and ask your questions.

Join us. Stay with us for the entire thing. We'd love to have your interaction. So the first one, let me jump into the first one.

I've been trying to do some shorts, some reels, and put some stuff on TikTok to get a little interaction from folks.

Trying to get the message out, do our part. And somebody commented on a

TikTok. Let me see if I can play it. This comes from another episode. I'll add it to stage.

And it looks like I need to take off our little background here so we can see it. There we go.

All right. Here we go. If you're from the premillennial dispensational view, you get to Matthew 24, verse 34.

Every other time, it means that generation, to whom he's speaking. Except for this particular verse.

Why change the inconsistency? When you understand there's not a gap in Daniel, you don't have to take

Matthew 24, verse 34 out of context. You can leave it in context and say, if all the other places, it says this generation is referring to the people to whom

Jesus is speaking, then this also means the same. And you don't have to take it out of context to make it fit a certain belief that you find in Daniel.

Does that make sense? It does. It does.

Glad I could add my commentary on that one. Oh. So, yeah, that was that was one of our videos about post -millennialism, partial preterism,

Matthew chapter 24. And a gentleman made a comment on there, and he was asking about Matthew chapter 19, verse 28.

And, well, I have my Bible flipped to another passage, a reference verse. So I don't have that pulled up.

So my apologies. But quickly, I'm running to Matthew chapter 19. Verse 28.

And it says, and Jesus said to them, truly,

I say to you. The you who have followed me in the regeneration, when the

Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And he asked, in context, what does regeneration mean in that verse?

I'll let you start it off, Dan. What do you think? How can we answer that question for this gentleman?

Regeneration in that verse, I believe, is talking about the coming of the new heavens and the new earth. Now, that opens up a can of worms, because there's a lot of disagreement on what is being talked about when the new heavens and the new earth comes up.

Some people believe that's an event that's entirely future. We believe that it is something that is progressively happening now.

Things are new heavens and new earth. Things are bleeding into the present world.

And then there will be something that happens when Christ is ready that completely renders all realms of existence sinless, where judgment will happen.

Death won't happen anymore. But until that time, Christ's work from the cross through the gospel is going out, and the world is being renewed.

The new heavens and new earth is both a present thing, and it is something that is going to be consummated or completed in the future.

So when it says here, the ESV actually, it reads a little different. It says,

Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you in the new world, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne.

So when Christ sits upon his throne, when he's king over all, when the new heavens and new earth have broken into existence, that's when these events are going to take place.

Now, I believe that he rose to the right hand of the father right after or during his ascension and that all these things began at that point.

So that's kind of where I'm at on it, that when it says regeneration, it's like you kind of break it down into its root words.

You've got re meaning again and generation, which has the same roots as Genesis or a coming alive.

It's a re bringing alive or renewing of the creation.

Right. Well, since he's asking about the context. I think the context gives us a little hint, but like you said, for some reason, the original author chose to use that word.

And then it was the translators into the English chose regeneration there.

But in verse twenty seven, just to give a little context, then

Peter said to him, behold, we have left everything and followed you. And then what will be there for us?

Which that's what Jesus he said. You don't have to deny yourself. Follow me. And he said, well, we have.

And what's there for us? He doesn't condemn them, but he says there is something for you.

And Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you that you who have followed me in the regeneration, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And everyone who has left houses or brother or sister or father, mother or children or farms for my namesake will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life.

But many who are first will be last and last will be first. So. Yeah, they've given up everything, just like he told them they would have and they followed

Jesus and there there's going to be a reward, he says, for them. And there's this there's this elevated seat for the disciples, judging the twelve tribes of Israel on twelve thrones.

So it it helps a little bit. If the new heavens and new earth, this this new world.

Starts, you know, with Christ and his kingdom and the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, the new heavens and earth are, you know, us, this new kingdom where the new temple.

Then it makes sense that they're they're being judges. They're maybe sitting on the seat of Moses, which is referenced in different places.

And Matthew, I think, judging. And so there

I was reading Matthew Henry earlier, and that's kind of the the mindset where he was, where they were judging

Israel after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Just this was the new.

The new way in the kingdom, they would. They would have this authority as a possible sitting on the throne.

Preaching the gospel with authority and sharing

Christ's law with this authority, so they they're exercising this their position sitting on these thrones.

In this new world, and I give credit to Matthew Henry, he he referenced

Hebrews chapter nine, verse 10. And I thought it was it goes along really well with with what you're thinking and where you went with this verse 10.

It says since they relate, of course, Hebrews is in chapter nine. He's talking about just reverse one.

Now, even the first covenant had regulations and divine worship and an earthly sanctuary. So he's he's reviewing and going over everything that was in this earthly sanctuary.

This in the old covenant, the altar, the veil, the tabernacle, the chair room that was that was over the altar, overshadowing the mercy seat.

So he's going over all these things that were in the earthly temple that was foreshadowing that was assembling

Christ. And then verse eight, just to give a little context, the Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed.

While the outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time, according accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience.

And then verse 10, that Matthew Henry reference, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation.

So and you go ahead. Yeah, it's important to remember that the time of reformation that he's talking about, then the time when the old temple stuff that was good for its time, which pointed to many really great things, the promises of God and things like that.

That as that's being passed away, is being passed away because Christ has come, because this salvation has been brought to man because of the work that Christ has done on the cross.

So just like when we're called, I forget where, somewhere in the New Testament, we're called new creations, new creatures in Christ Jesus.

That's part of that regeneration, taking what was old and making it new so that when we look to Christ, we find

Christ as the one who has accomplished something and we are receiving the benefits from it.

So Christ is accomplishing or receiving his kingdom. His kingdom is coming to the earth.

He's taking the throne because he has that authority. And because he has that authority, that's why those are able to sit on the 12, the 12 thrones because they're not because they're having their own authority because they're seated with Christ.

They have an authority that is given to them by Christ himself. So all of this is happening because of what

Christ has done. And that goes back to even the context of this passage where you talk about the rich young ruler, you know, what, what, what do

I do? And he said, sell everything that you have and give it to the poor.

And he's like, I got a lot of stuff. I don't want to do that. And Jesus is saying, well, if you are willing to give up everything that you have in order to follow me and enter into my kingdom, then you're going to find riches untold.

As you enter in, you're going to find new life in the new heaven and new earth. And this is a house isn't in some somewhere.

It says we have houses and land and all sorts of stuff in this world and in the kingdom to come.

Why is that? Is that health, wealth and prosperity? I don't think so. But what it does say is that we're going to have brothers and sisters, which we have all across the globe.

And we as Christians that love each other are willing to share with each other in our time of need.

So, I mean, it's not a wealth, health and prosperity thing, but it's a. He's saying to them when the regeneration takes place, when the new world is brought in, when

Christ's kingdom is established itself upon the earth because of Christ's work on the cross, that's when all of these things are going to start to take place.

So the the questioner really asked a good question. What does regeneration mean in context?

And that's how we that's how we define that word by the context and understand what he's meaning by using that word in that sentence, in that situation, in that scenario, because you may disagree with where Dan and I are.

On our understanding. Of this particular meaning, particular passage, eschatology, partial preterism, post -millennialism, you may disagree, however.

I think the interpretation process is something that we can agree on where we need to be when when we're interpreting a passage.

And I think that's where he's coming from when he's asking the question, because we're familiar with that word regeneration.

And normally, typically, when we hear the word regeneration, we're we're thinking it to mean or thinking it's in the context of personal salvation, where God saves us through Christ.

We're born again. We've been made new. And so that's where our mind initially goes when we see that word.

But is that what that word means in this particular verse, in this context? And as we've looked at it.

And like we say, we try really hard. Our aim and our goal is to interpret, rightly divide the word correctly, to interpret according to what

God is trying to tell us. So I think Dan and I both are trying to be very careful not to interpret these passages with a partial preterist, with a post -millennial lens.

We believe that we're pulling that out of Scripture and not pushing it into Scripture. And that's why we landed where we land.

With that being said. That's how we approach Matthew, chapter nine, verse twenty eight, when it says regeneration.

Well, it can't be talking about personal salvation. It's got to be talking about something else.

So what is he talking about? And it's interesting that he says, you have followed me in the regeneration.

Well, what in what in the world does he mean by the regeneration? And I think that that Hebrews nine reference is a good reference, because just as Dan was was talking about, you have this transition.

And Hebrews talks about that transition. You have the old, which is gone. It's done away with. And then you have this overlapping period where you still have the outer tabernacle, where sacrifices are still being made that can't take away.

They can't perfect the conscience. Hebrews chapter nine says it can't do those things.

But until it's gone and Jesus has completed all these things, his blood is what.

Covers us. Perfects our conscience through his righteousness that we can be made right with God.

And so the old is done away with you there. These folks are in the middle of that transition.

And then you have the new covenant where it's it's all Christ, all his law.

And. And I believe and I think Dan would agree that that's the regeneration that Matthew chapter 19 is talking about, the the transition from the old to the new.

Yeah, I think it's the same thing that John's talking about in first John two as well. When he says that Christ died, they made a propitiation for our sins versus the sins of the whole world, that it's not just the things.

It's not just the individual salvation that's that's in in view there.

It's the sin that is tainted and scarred all of creation that is being wiped away. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think the another takeaway from that is don't don't let a familiar word used in a different way throw you off, read, read the context, read other passages, cross references, look at commentaries, you know, study from other folks and try to understand why they use that word and what it means in its context.

Any other thoughts on on Matthew chapter 19 regeneration? Nope. Cool. Cool.

Moving right along. So as I was telling you before, this is a question that I've I've been wanting to ask you for some time now because I've been occasionally interacting with someone who was they have been a

Baptist, from my understanding, all their life. And then recently.

Well, I can't say recently because I don't know the time frame, but at some point and they their reasoning is because they were reading scripture, which which is good.

We can't fault anybody for that. You read scripture and it changes your mind, convicts your conscience.

So therefore, you go in that direction. You can't fault somebody for that, leaning on scripture for their direction and the

Holy Spirit's got it. But they're where they landed was to go to the

Seventh -day Adventist church. And it was mostly from understanding it was mostly over the

Sabbath issue, which is the it's in their name.

It's the I guess it's their big. Is it their number one?

Their their big issue, since it's a part of the name part of it. Yeah. Seventh -day

Adventist. But yeah, he's he's really. He reminds me of.

What they call cage stage, kind of in that cage stage where this is how

I describe cage stage, a lot of a lot of folks in the in the circles that we're around, talk about people being in the cage.

They're enlightened to a new doctrine, a new teaching. The Holy Spirit or has convicted them, has opened their eyes to a teaching, a correction from maybe where they were to a right understanding of scripture.

And so like a Calvinist, someone becomes a Calvinist and they learn this Calvinist doctrine.

And then they they're in this time period in their in their newly

Calvinistic lives. People call it cage stage. My understanding of that is you're so excited about it.

You want to rattle somebody's cages and convince them of it. And sometimes we rattle a little too hard trying to convince somebody that they should believe what we believe.

We will see. Let's see what brother has to say. I don't even say that there's a spiritual advantage to even more than just the twelve disciples.

Those that forsake their own cells and their own lives for the cause of Christ have the ability to rightfully judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

We don't stay on this in our men's class a few months ago or a few months back. There's so much that they would want to apply spiritually, not just literally.

Even going back to to that, just real quick. If if you look at that passage and it says twelve thrones, remember,

Judas hadn't been outed yet as as somebody, you know, somebody who's going to betray him and fall away.

So one of the twelve, if you take it as as twelve people, twelve thrones, then you.

You kind of have one empty for a while. So I think when he goes on to say about mothers and brothers and this one and that one and first will be last and lastly, first,

I really think that those twelve thrones are are symbolic of of all believers who reign with Christ, especially as they pass on and are seated with him more, more fully.

And I wish I would have a lot of that, at least in my mind. But I think when I was reading up on this,

I was seeing where, you know, it was right. That it references all believers as partaking in this judgment, being able to judge and rule with Christ, not just the twelve tribes of Israel.

Paul says that we will one day we're going to judge angels. It's like, oh, what's that all about?

So, yeah, but it's going to come from a place of righteousness and justice because we'll be doing so on the basis of Christ's righteousness and his his authority.

This made me think about something else on this particular issue before we get back over to the the

Sabbath day issue. One of the one of the places I think I disagree with with Matthew Henry and you can

I'll give you my thoughts and you can correct me. I know, right.

I thought he was I thought he was post -millennial. And then I started reading about. In that particular passage on Matthew chapter 19, he started talking about the

Antichrist has got to come and I was like, I thought you were post -millennial. That's a that's a more.

It's a more old school post -millennial position. A lot of them believe that that the pope was the

Antichrist, especially coming out of the Reformation. Some believe there is still a a final

Antichrist figure that will arise at the very end of the millennium, which at that point, a lot of post -millennials thought was a.

What was a literal thousand years that after a thousand year reign of Christ, the begun and gone through towards the end of it, that's when a figure would arise who would gather.

How you look at gather somebody to fight against Christ, but before they actually got the chance to be destroyed.

I think it was Matthew Henry that I was. Well, I should have highlighted some of those verses, but he was referencing believers.

Having judge or judging over the nations, but this came after the second coming where where we would judge the nations.

And that understanding just didn't sit right with me initially, because I'm thinking.

In Jesus second coming post second coming, it's over and done with.

But there is a separation of the sheeps and the goats, and remember that judgment does begin at the house of the

Lord. So if you take those two things together, there'll be a separation of sheeps and sheeps and goats.

The judgment beginning of the house of the Lord will then be judged already and can sit in judgment with Christ over by anything that he judges further.

So do you think that. As far as the apostles, as far as us as believers, this judging this that scripture is referencing.

Is it talking about both and like now in this time period and at the at the final judgment were that you were referencing?

I believe so, because one of the one of the things about a righteous judge, a real true, we'll say politician to bring it into modern terms or whatever.

If you have authority by God to do something, then you are really his spokesman.

You're supposed to be judging by witness. So you are witnessing or testifying that this is what

God is saying. This is what he wants done, and therefore it will be done. So we'll be standing with Christ as witnesses, testifiers, those who are in agreement with what he's doing, because what he's doing is right and just and good.

So. So that kind of makes me think of you're talking about us being witnesses.

We make judgments throughout this time period, and then that time comes where the final judgment is being made.

And we we as believers reference those judgments. Well, they didn't they didn't adhere to those judgments.

So that's that's part of our witnessing to their final judgment. They didn't they didn't adhere to the judgments that were being made while they were on Earth.

Right. There being. Those who whose names aren't found in the book of life will have rejected the the call of of of the gospel and of Christ to repent of their sins and turn to him.

Psalm two, where they the nations rage and the rulers plot of vain thing.

They're called each one of them to to to kiss the sun unless they perish in the way to pay homage to Christ as king.

Everyone is called to do that. And those who don't are going to be judged by Christ and those who reign with him as his vice regents or whatever you want to call it.

However, that works out. Exactly. We'll be with Christ seated in the heavenlies, raised up to sit with him on the throne, as Hebrew says, which is incredible.

Not that we did anything great, but that because of what Christ has done in his his incarnation, his becoming man, that he has lifted an elevated man to such a place in his redemption.

That it's it's truly incredible that God has called us to be. His sons adopted into his family, brothers, brother with Christ, bride of Christ, and all pictures, of course, you can't be a bride and a brother at the same time and son, sons and daughters of of the father in heaven.

Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah. It's it's interesting that Philip brings this up because you'll hear this from unbelievers.

You'll even hear this sometimes from believers. Judge not lest you be judged. They're quoting, of course, from John chapter seven.

Misquoting or misinterpreting that passage because John chapter seven goes on to encourage us to judge.

There's no way to be a Christian and present Christianity without making some type of judgment call unless you keep your

Christianity to yourself, which if you're a believer and the Holy Spirit is living inside of you, then.

I don't see that mixing very well that the Holy Spirit would allow you to keep your Christianity to yourself because even the gospel itself, if you are presenting the gospel, you're you're making a judgment call.

You're saying this person needs to hear the gospel just like I did, which implies that they're a sinner.

Even even then, you're not really making a judgment. You're just standing and giving the amen, witnessing to the judgment that Christ has already made.

Right, right. Yeah. And that's going to be the perception, though.

Oh, sure. Yeah. Why are you saying this now? I'm not saying it, buddy. I'm going to say I was right there with you, but Christ said this.

And he's also provided his son that we can have forgiveness of our sins. So come on, jump on board.

We need to go. This ship is sailing. It's sinking. And we need to get off. We need to find find

Christ and find our safe harbor with him. That's right. That's right. So, you know, there's no way that we can keep

Christianity to ourselves. And so we're going to be charged with being judgmental because we're sharing

Christ's judgment upon this world that they need the gospel. And it starts with the gospel. But then when we begin to start living it out more fully and we speak to the nations, we say

Christ is king. You know, that's that's a political office. Christ is king.

He rules over everything. We should live by his judgments. In all of our lives and every aspect.

So, you know, we're going to be found guilty of being judgmental because we want to live according to Christ, his rule.

I guess I guess Jesus will be found guilty of being judgmental then to accept if your judgment is in righteousness and truth.

There's nothing really nothing really bad about being guilty of that. That's right.

Amen to that. All right, let's flip back over to the Sabbath. No, I'm kidding.

We've got to get there one day. You'll get there. And and I don't even bring this the

Sabbath issue up. To to argue one way or the other.

I just wanted to hear your perspective on the difference between. The two different viewpoints on how you honor.

How you honor the Sabbath versus how they honor the Sabbath, because in in the interaction with this gentleman,

I make the comment. Well, I have friends who are Baptist. I have friends who are Presbyterian that honor the

Sabbath. You know, you didn't have to swing to the Seventh -day Adventist direction or or church to to honor the

Sabbath to follow your conviction from the Holy Spirit that you found in his word. And so that I've been wanting for a while now to ask you.

What is the difference? Why would I not go towards a seven? If I want to honor the

Sabbath, it's in it's in their name. They honor the Sabbath where we're commanded in Scripture to honor the

Sabbath in the Old Testament. And there's places in the new that that you would reference where where we should still honor the

Sabbath. Why not swing to the Seventh -day Adventist? Oh, well, there's a lot of reasons why we wouldn't do that.

But as far as as the idea of the Sabbath goes, it doesn't start with Israel and the law given to Israel.

One thing is that they were told to keep the Sabbath before the law was given. But even before that, you go all the way back to creation and God made the heavens and the earth on the seventh day.

God rested and he sanctified and called it a holy day. So it's a holy day where he rested.

And later on, we're given further revelation by God to to the nation of Israel that they're supposed to keep it in order to honor.

They're supposed to keep the Sabbath in order to honor God. And he gives them some restrictions on what they should do, what they shouldn't do, that they shouldn't be working.

They shouldn't be making their servants work their household work. But they should be taking the whole time to look to God and what he has done to remember their creator as they're going along in what they're doing and take the whole day to do it.

Then one of the issues, especially with the Seventh -day Adventist and say a Presbyterian, is that the

Seventh -day Adventist will say, well, that's exactly right. And that's why we need to keep the Sabbath today. And I'll say, absolutely.

We're going to go to church on Sunday and have, you know, celebrate or observe the

Sabbath on the Lord's Day, which is a Sunday. And they say, ah, you can't do that. You've got to do it on Saturday, which is the traditional

Sabbath of the seventh day. And that's the main, that's one of the main issues between the two positions.

One sees that the Sabbath day remained as a

Saturday or in Jewish ideology from Friday sundown till Saturday sundown.

And then the Presbyterian understanding is that we keep the

Sabbath by looking to the

Lord's Day, remembering Christ for what he has done. And we do that because of the tradition of the church as we find it in the

New Testament. There's a couple of places in the book of Revelation, for instance,

John was in the spirit on the Lord's Day. And who's at Acts 20,

I believe we get there real quick. Maybe that's yeah.

Acts 20 verse seven on the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread that I believe is a reference to the

Lord's Supper. Paul talked or is preaching and intending to go the next day.

And he prolonged his speech until midnight. In other words, he was preaching so long. A young dude fell asleep and fell out of the window and died.

And Paul rose him back. But the point there was that they were meeting together on the first day of the week.

On the first day of the week, I believe is the apostolic tradition for how we are to keep the

Lord's Day. So it says in second Thessalonians to remember the traditions are passed down either by the apostles themselves or their letters so that you can go way crazy on that.

And and bring in all of the Roman stuff or the Eastern Orthodox stuff or whatever other traditions you want to throw in there.

But I think we should. It's best if we restrict that to what Scripture has said or described as the practice of the early church.

So the early churches is shown several places meeting on the first day of the week in order to break bread together, to sing the

Psalms in order to hear the word of God, to pray with one another, to remember those things.

And that's how they were keeping the Sabbath day a holy because they were in the in doing that.

They were doing the things that were commanded to them in the fourth commandment, which is to remember the

Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall do your labor and all your work. The seventh day is that holy to the

Lord. I know you should not do any work. You or your male servant, manservant or the stranger that's within your gate.

So it's a whole community wide resting and looking to God on that day, refraining from doing other things in order to.

In order to give Christ his due praise, to remember your creator, that goes all the way back to the creation where God set that day apart for rest from his work and for us to remember our creator who has given us the breath in our lungs and blood in our veins and the food that we eat and Christ who has died for our sins.

Right. And that's kind of I guess that's one of the issues that I've tackled in that conversation is.

I would I would say I can't speak for anybody else, but just based on my experience, a response to that is, well, what man has authority to change the

Sabbath? And of course, like you, I would always point back to the New Testament, the authority of the apostles and what they practice.

How would you how would you answer that question? How does man have authority to change the Sabbath? Well, man only has the authority that God has given him.

Right. So there's tons of stuff we have to assume because there's tons of stuff that Jesus spoke with his disciples, the apostles about that.

We just don't know what it is, because if it says it was in John, if everything that Jesus wrote down was written down, there'd be not enough paper and pen to put it all into writing.

So when Paul tells us and he's writing to the Thessalonian church and tells them to remember that in their letter and in their tradition to keep those things in order to stand firm in the faith.

That's the thing he's looking for, for towards the man of lawlessness and the great deception coming towards him in order for them to stand firm in the faith.

They are to remember the scriptures, the letters of the apostles and the traditions that are laid out for them.

Now, those traditions that are laid out for them, I believe are also going to be reflected in the narratives of the

New Testament to show us. All right. So we're supposed to keep the, for instance, supposed to keep the fourth commandment.

The apostles and the early church were meeting on the Lord's Day, which is

Sunday. Therefore, in order for us to keep the Lord's Day, we are doing it on Sunday, the first day of the week.

And so that's how it was changed because that was the tradition of the early church from the apostles.

Yeah, but it was Constantine. But it wasn't. There's no historical record that says that Constantine did it.

Yeah. We can point back to the New Testament apostles who were before Constantine.

Yep. The practice was already established. Yep. And it goes back to all the

Christmas arguments. You know, everyone borrows from God, from the

Bible, from the New Testament. You have all these traditions, these flood stories. It all can be traced back to God, his people, his practices and his ways and his scripture.

Yep. Yeah. Not that I think Christmas is in the same vein as the

Lord's Day. Right. Covenanter Dan right there. Covenanters believe that there are only 52 holy days a year.

Those are the Lord's Day. Everything else is secondary. So, let's say you want to remember the

Lord's birth on Christmas. Great, fine. But if it falls on the Lord's Day, we're doing Lord's Day stuff before we do

Christmas stuff. Because the Lord's Day has been commanded and Christmas is not.

Yeah. Amen. Visually, in my mind, when

I hear this argument, it seems like a camera that has multiple zoom settings.

And from my perspective, the position that I hold is that I don't see anywhere in scripture where the law is separated into multiple different parts.

It's always seen and spoken of as a whole. But in the argument that I've been hearing is that, okay, well, everything else is done away with, but the

Ten Commandments, they stand forever. Well, first of all, all the other laws are just, from my understanding, an explanation of the

Ten Commandments. How to live out the Ten Commandments. Expansion, sure. Expansion of the Ten Commandments.

So, it's never separated. But then, you go to another zoom setting and they focus strictly on remember the

Sabbath day and keep it holy. And forget about the other ones. Well, if you zoom back out and just look at the other

Nine Commandments and you read them in the Old Testament, you have the one that says,

You shall not make for yourself an idol or likeness of what is in heaven or on earth, beneath or in the water under the sea.

And then you have, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Okay, I've kept that one. I've got, let's see how many neighbors that I have.

I've never, you know, spoke against them in a court of law.

I never lied about them, bore false witness against them. And I shall not covet my neighbor's house or his wife or his servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey.

I'm good on that one. What has to happen? For us to understand the meaning, the true meaning,

God's true intention. We have the New Testament. We have general equity.

Well, yeah, that was the whole purpose of the Sermon on the Mount was to take, you know, okay, well, you haven't committed adultery.

But if you've ever lusted in your heart after a woman, you have committed adultery. I've never murdered anyone.

Yes. But if you've hated your brother, you've also, you've committed murder because it's in the same vein.

So, yeah. And who's your neighbor? Jesus explains who your neighbor is.

And so with Christ, you have an understanding of these other commandments. Why can't we do the same thing with that commandment?

Understand God's commandment of remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy with general equity and from the

New Testament. You should. You should. Because you're just inconsistent.

The reason why I say that is you're just inconsistent if you don't interpret that commandment the way you interpret the other commandments.

Right. Another thing that I hear a lot is people say, well,

Christ is my Sabbath rest. It's like, well, sure, I'll give you that.

You know, Hebrews 4. But I'm like, well, you should still keep the Lord's day as a Sabbath. And they're like, no, no, because Christ is my

Sabbath. I don't need a day. I have Christ himself. I'm like, well, again, Hebrews 4 says, so then there remains a

Sabbath rest for the people of God. It speaks to the fact that the

Sabbath is something that we are still to keep because we are looking to Christ.

It's also interesting that that particular use of Sabbath right there is the only one that in the

Greek is the word Sabaton. It's in a different form, but it's

Sabbath. It means not rest, but it actually means

Sabbath. The other instances have rest as a connotation.

It's a different word. So they say that they'll say, well,

Christ is my Sabbath rest. And it's not commanded anywhere in the New Testament that I keep the

Sabbath. I'm like, it's right there, right where you're trying to say where it doesn't say it. It says it right there.

Well, I think that's where you and I probably should take some time to tussle through those passages because I don't think we would see exactly.

I mean, I think we're really close, but in the end, once you convince me, we would.

Oh, yeah. Well, currently, we would look at that passage and we would come up in it somewhat different places.

But, you know, I'm not going to fight with you or struggle with you over, you know, worshiping on Sunday or honoring

Christ by honoring the Sabbath. So, you know, that's a different argument for a different day on our perspective.

Now, bringing it back a little bit to your, unless you had something to add, bringing it back to the original question, a comparison between a

Seventh -day Adventist understanding of the Sabbath and a Presbyterian understanding of the Sabbath. I'm not entirely sure what the

Seventh -day Adventist would say about what you can and cannot do on the Lord's Day or the

Sabbath day. Excuse me. On the Christian Sabbath, from what

I understand, I could be wrong, but from what I understand, there's a more strict list of do's and don'ts for the

Seventh -day Adventist than there is for, say, a Presbyterian. Really, in between, for Reformed folks, there's a few different views.

Some view all forms of recreation as off -limits and some view it as not off -limits.

Calvin, for instance, it's said, I don't know if this is a true story or not, but it's said that John Knox went down to visit

Calvin in Geneva. And then on the Lord's Day, no, not during worship, but afterwards, was playing lawn bowling.

And apparently Knox was like, well, what are you doing? It's the Lord's Day. And Calvin was like, what?

We're hanging out as a church. We're being the family of God. And it's not interfering with the worship of God.

So we're OK. So even in Reformed circles, it may be a little different.

But the general Reformed understanding is that we engage in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except things that are necessary for life, works of necessity and mercy.

So we go to worship. We don't do our regular employment the way that we're at commerce, things that we're trying to do to make money.

But if we need to go visit the sick or deliver some sort of meal to someone who's in need or if we need to go out evangelizing or even if we have, say, our business that we have and say your barn catches fire, you put the fire out.

Because it's work of necessity. If you don't put the fire out, your family starves and you may burn down half the county.

So that's the general understanding of how a Reformed person would keep the

Sabbath day to remember God and public worship and to read the scriptures and hang out with your fellow believers and encourage them and see how the work is going and pray for them and try to reach the lost and show mercy to those who are around us.

Yeah, well, I think I just thought about this, too, not just hearing from your perspective, but maybe from my perspective as well as as a

Baptist, because we we honor the Sabbath, too. And we would we would pull from Hebrews chapter four.

Now, I can't speak for all all Baptists. I can speak from my perspective as a Baptist and my understanding of scripture.

But we would pull from Hebrews chapter four as well in honoring the Sabbath. And then so. Full disclosure at this point, before Dan convinces me otherwise, when

I look at Hebrews chapter four and it says remains a Sabbath, I think in context there, it's speaking of Jesus.

Yes, there remains a Sabbath and that Sabbath is Jesus. He is our Sabbath. He is our Sabbath rest. So we and then in other passages of scripture in the

New Testament, we're not to to judge people on their these these days, festivals and other days that they honor.

So we following the apostolic tradition and their authority, you know, we gather together on Sunday.

We worship together on Sunday. We honor the Sabbath that remains, which is which is Jesus. So that's how we honor the

Sabbath, by honoring Christ and worshiping him, following the apostolic tradition, worshiping on Sunday and thinking about another inconsistency in their interpretation.

Now, I'm not a seven day Adventist apologist or an expert, so I'm just basing my knowledge on experience of my interactions.

But on that, that first inconsistency that I described where you have almost like a zoo, zoo, several zoom settings where.

The end here, I looked up this website, ask an Adventist friend, and I was reading an article on there and they talk about how they narrow it down.

And specifically focus on the Ten Commandments, not so much on the other ones, but the

Ten Commandments and then interactions with this gentleman, he seems to zoom in just on on the

Sabbath. Well, you've got to you've got to interact with all of them. But then another inconsistency that I've seen in my experience is that,

OK, you say that there's a separation in the law. They divide it, they separate it.

Some has greater importance than the other. But then, as you were talking about how there's stricter observances on the

Sabbath for them, maybe than for you. I've heard of them following the law in other areas where they they're not allowed to eat shellfish or they don't do this or do that because it's spoken of in the law.

So they do honor the rest of the law to some degree, from my understanding, and not just separate it and only focus on and elevate the

Ten Commandments above the others. They do elevate the rest of the law. Is that correct?

From your understanding? I'll be honest with you. I don't know. But so that's just from my experience and my understanding in past interactions is that they they do honor the rest of the law and not just separate it and focus and elevate the

Ten Commandments. They they they restrict themselves in other areas because of the rest of the law.

And so that will be another inconsistency in their interpreting of the law.

I bring that up only to say, for those who might listen to this,

I would like, just as we wrap things up here, we talked about general equity and understanding things from the

New Testament perspective, understanding things from Christ himself, how we're supposed to understand the

Old Testament. So can you explain what when I say general equity and using general equity to interpret the law, what do

I mean by that? And why is that a better practice? Why is that? Why do you think that's the practice

Scripture teaches us? General equity talks about is basically a way of applying the

Old Testament law to today, because not not everything that is in the

Old Testament law is something that has a direct one for one for the way that we live our lives today.

For instance, it says in, I believe it's

Deuteronomy, that you should build a parapet around the roof of your house.

Now, it's like a fence. Now, why would I do that? Nobody's going on my roof.

And if they are, please get off my roof. I don't want you up there. It's a really steep barn style roof.

There's snow up there. You're going to run into my chimney. There's tree branches and stuff all around. Please get off my roof.

You shouldn't be up there. But that wasn't the case in the ancient world. In the ancient world, you'd have your guest room up there.

In fact, the Lord's Supper was probably in one of those upper rooms. Since it's

Christmas time, the word for in that Mary and Joseph didn't find any room in was the same room as the upper room.

So there was no room in the guest suite upstairs. So the law was there to protect the people at your residence.

You have a responsibility as a homeowner, as a person who is hosting people at your place, to put things into effect that are going to keep your guests and yourself safe.

So if they're going to be up high, put up a little fence so they can't get like they're not just like accidentally stepping off and you have people breaking their legs and their necks all the time.

A way of bringing that over into our day of general equity would be something along the lines of you should put up a fence around your swimming pool.

So that way, young children and neighbors don't just as walking by fall in the pool and potentially drown.

You're taking a step to make sure that the people who are coming to your property or your place of residence, that they are secure as they can be.

Accidents happen, but you've taken a step to make sure that that doesn't happen. The reason why that's important is because God's law is not just some arbitrary set of rules, but it comes from the wisdom of God in his morality, which is really defined by him.

It's not arbitrary. It's definitional of who God is. It shows his righteousness.

So as you look at the law, you want to make sure that your life is lining up with that law as best you can.

Now, I will say this, a lot of what has taken place in the ceremonies and the different sacrifices and this and that, those things had a specific purpose.

They were there to show you that you need to have a covering for your sin.

And now that we have that covering of our sin in Christ, who's come and died on the cross for our sins and laid in the grave, rose up, gone up to heaven.

The way that we apply those portions of the law to ourselves is to trust and believe the gospel.

We don't go out and make sacrifices and do wave offerings and this and that. We trust in Christ who has come and paid for our sins and provided that covering and that atonement for us.

So general equity takes what was it like there? What was the purpose of it?

And we bring it into our context, our way of living and say, okay, because God has in his wisdom and his righteousness said this here, the same thing in my context is going to be this, and this is the way that I should endeavor to live my life, knowing that I'm going to fail.

I'm going to do pretty poor at it sometimes. And that because Christ has come, I can trust that those sacrifices

I would have to bring for my sin in the Old Testament, Christ has already sacrificed himself upon the cross and covered my sins.

That way I am forgiven. Another example that I saw was the honor your father and mother.

And what does it say in the Ten Commandments? Honor your father and mother so that your days may be prolonged in the land.

You go to the New Testament, you go to Hebrews, which we keep referencing, that your days may be long on the earth.

So you go to the New Testament to help understand what it means to us, how we understand it, how we apply it to our lives.

And before anybody tries to make a defense and say, no, we can't change the law.

We can't change it to make it apply for us. We've got to do what it says.

Think about it in these terms. And Dan, please correct me if I'm wrong, but think about it in these terms.

The Old Testament law, even the Ten Commandments, the law is not

God. The law reflects God. So even the law that we have, the

Mosaic law, the law that we have in the Old Testament, the law in the Old Covenant, that law that is written down for us is itself a general equity type law because it's not

God. It reflects God. It reflects God to help them to honor him in their context.

And so, therefore, we take God's law and we honor God by understanding it in our context.

Does that make sense? You think I'm going in the right direction there? It does some only because you have stuff like Moses saying that you could divorce your wife and send her away with a letter.

And then Jesus comes and says, Moses said that, but he only did that because of the hardness of your heart.

So, yeah, there are things that spoke to their context. Well, the whole law was like the example that you gave about the fence on the house.

That was for their context. It was honoring God specifically in their context.

But the thing that it reflected from God's character about caring for those, caring for people's welfare, that's the portion that comes over.

So that's where you're going with it 100%. Yeah. That's where we're good. Exactly. We want to reflect

God and honor him in our context. And the law is a good guide for us to be able to do that, to reflect and honor his character and nature.

Because that's what they were doing with that law in their context. Yep. Amen. All right.

So if you have any questions or questions, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know that you watch.

Say hello to us. We do want you to remember that there was no way for us.

We've talked about the law a lot tonight. And there was no way for anyone, a

Gentile, a Jew, anyone in our context to have kept all the law to be in a perfect situation, to have a perfected conscience, to have a perfect conscience, to be in a right relationship with God.

And then there was nothing that we could do, as Hebrews says, to have and make a perfected conscience.

We're just helpless and hopeless in our human state. Sin entered this world through Adam and Eve.

And it gave us all a nature in which all we want to do is sin.

So there's no way that we could have remained perfected or to make up and do anything to perfect our conscience.

We're hopeless. We're done. We're done with. And because of our sin, being against the holy

God, we deserve a holy and eternal punishment, which the

Bible describes as hell. And he will judge the quick and the dead. He will judge all men everywhere.

It's appointed on a man who wants to die and then the judgment. And our plea is that all mankind is just like us.

We're no different. We're no better than anyone else. We all need God's provision.

We need his love. We need his forgiveness. And he provided that in Jesus Christ. He sent his one and only son.

He left his throne. He left heaven and came to this earth as a baby, which we just celebrated.

He lived a sinless life. He did have a perfect conscience, kept that perfect conscience before God.

He kept the whole law and was a worthy sacrifice. And that Hebrews chapter 9 that we were just referencing talks about the blood of Christ, which will cover us and make us right before God because of the work and blood of Jesus Christ that he shed on the cross.

He rose from the dead three days just as it was prophesied, claiming victory that he's sitting in the heaven where he sits at the right hand of the father.

He sat on that throne that Matthew chapter 19 talks about that we read.

He's sitting. He sat on that throne. He remains on that throne forevermore, as Isaiah talks about.

He has a kingdom that will endure forever. So that's where our confidence can remain in a king who will endure forever, who has purchased the victory with his own blood.

And so our plea to you is that you would come to him, repenting of your sins, putting your faith and trust in him, in Jesus Christ.

Because that's our only hope. God is the creator of this universe, of this world. And we would plead with you that you would no longer live your life as the only thing that matters is your own happiness.

There's more out there than just a me centered world.

There's judgment to come because there is a creator and there's sin in this world.

And we're all sinners and we all need Jesus Christ. So we plead with you to come to him today.

Dan, I appreciate the conversation and I would you close us in prayer. Sure. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your goodness and your grace towards us.

Pray that as we go, you would cause us to know you and love you and keep us and cause us to remember your son in Christ.

And we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you all for watching tonight. We really appreciate it. And if you get a chance, please like us on Facebook and YouTube and X and wherever else that we are.

We just want to share the gospel and get Jesus out there and try to relate his word and make it relatable and share the truth of his word with others.

Remember, as always, Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Speak with the authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ.

you have a good night. We'll see you soon. Bye.