Book of Romans - God's Governance of Man | The Law of Love, Pt. 1 (01/02/2022)

I'm excited to be with you today. As you know, we're in Romans chapter 13, and the main idea is how

God governs the actions of men in this chapter. And so let's review a little bit here.

We've got four main points in this chapter, and we've covered the first two. So today we're gonna start on number three, the law of love, or sometimes theologians call this the law of Jesus Christ.

And I wanna spend some time talking about this one before we get to that fourth one. And we won't spend a lot of time on the fourth one because we've spent quite a bit of time talking about the end times lately.

Ever since January 6th, we've hit that on and off. So we're not gonna cover that sort of thing with Roman numeral four, but we are gonna talk about the effect of the doctrine of the second coming in the history of the church, and that's very brief.

So we're not gonna spend a lot of time on that. We'll be done with chapter 13, but I do wanna spend quite a good deal of time on chapter three.

It'll probably take more than today's service for, sorry, I should say Roman numeral three, the law of love.

That'll take a few Sundays, the Lord willing. And so wherever I stop today, then a couple of Sundays when

I get back, we'll pick it back up there, all right? So let's talk about the law of love, the law of Jesus Christ.

Here's the things we've talked about in some detail already, Christian relationship to human government, reasons

Christians should obey the earthly governors, and of course, because God ordained that we should and said that we should, but secondly, because we get punished by them if we disobey them, and because it should bother our conscience if we don't, since the

Lord told us we should obey them when these leaders are in fact ordained by God.

So we've covered that. So that brings us to this third point of how God deals with men in time and in space and in the nations of the world.

How does he govern all of this? And it brings us to the idea of the law of Christ. So we'll pick it up there in verse eight in Romans chapter 13.

Oh, no man anything, but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

And this is where this idea starts in Romans chapter 13. When it says, oh, no man anything,

I've seen some people, in fact, when I was younger, use this to try to use this as a verse that proves you shouldn't be in debt.

That's not what it's talking about. And sometimes we preachers, when we get into our 60s, we try to go and delete all the sermons we preached when we were in our 20s.

But if you look at the context that this is found in, it's not talking about debt.

What it is talking about is with regard to the law of God and other people looking at your life and judging you by whether or not you're eating meat that's offered to idols or whether or not you're worshiping on Sunday when you should be worshiping on Saturday, which is the true

Sabbath, they will say. And all these things that people can judge us for, this is saying you don't owe any man anything other than this, and that is to love one another.

And this is coming from Jesus Christ to the apostle Paul through the

Holy Spirit to us. So think about that. Why? Because he that loves another has fulfilled the law.

Jesus taught that to Paul in the wilderness, and Paul is teaching it to us by the power of the

Holy Spirit. So that's really the context of what it's talking about. With regard to whether you're doing enough good works, whether you're living right, whether you're keeping the law, don't let any man judge you other than for this, that you love one another because love fulfills the law.

That's the whole idea, and that's how this starts. Now there's a lot to this, but I mean, that's the premise, that's the seed of the whole idea, and there it is.

And boy, the Lord just states it for us. It couldn't be more clear than that. So if we look at this word

O in the Greek, it means to be under obligation, or if you fail in your duties, then you, it's kind of like you, the meaning of this word is you owe for that because you didn't do the duties you were supposed to do.

So this is not talking about money and debt and borrowing money and things like that.

This is talking about fulfilling obligations, and specifically in the context, it is the obligation to obey

God, all right? Obey the laws of God, and that's what it's talking about.

So don't fail in your duty with regard to that, but love one another, and that will cause you to never fail in that duty.

Do you see the idea? I mean, the Greek word helps us see that a little bit better than the English word O, all right?

So don't fail in our duty toward God, but love one another, and we will not fail because we will fulfill the law.

That's the idea, all right? Now fulfill, what about that? It means to make replete, which is an old

English word we don't use a lot today, but it's a good one. We should start using it probably, but it just means to make something full, all right?

To level it up. Now think about that. Love, the Lord says, is that which levels up the law, that which satisfies the law.

It makes the law full in our lives. Isn't that great to know? So it makes it a little simpler than keeping hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rabbinic laws, when all you need to do is reach up and hold

Jesus' hand like Peter did when he was sinking and grab that hand again. That's a picture of us being spirit -filled, and we walk then in the love of God, and we obey and keep the law when we're in that mode, and that's what we're exhorted to do.

So if you love another person, you have leveled up or satisfied your duty to that person and to the

Lord, isn't that cool? So now let's look at the next verse. Gives us a little more detail. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill.

And so now Paul is giving us some of the law, right? Some of the Jewish law, the laws of Moses.

Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness or lie, in other words.

Thou shalt not covet, in other words, desire things that other people have that you haven't done the work to earn, and if there be any other commandment.

So now he sort of mentioned some of the 10 commandments, he mentioned some of the laws of Moses here, and then he just pulls all the rest of them in, if there be any other commandment.

So all of the laws of Moses are briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Isn't that something? So you see how simple the gospel message is and how complex

Judaizers and people that wanna bring us back under the law, they will make it complex.

I mean, they can mess your mind up so badly and I exhort you as your pastor, do not listen to them.

Don't give them the time of day. Don't even wish them Godspeed, the apostle Paul would say.

I know that sounds a little rough, right? But people that are trying to bring the law back into the gospel, they are false prophets.

They may be nice people. I mean, most people that are in the realm of scamming us, they're very nice, have lovely personalities.

By definition, it's the only way they can scam you. So they're gonna look like angels of light, right?

That's what the Bible says. So does Satan look like an angel of light? So that's what the Bible says.

So what we have to look at is their fruit, which is their doctrine. And if they start introducing stuff you gotta do to be saved or stuff you gotta do to stay saved, you need to walk away from them.

I mean, if you want to, you can rebuke them first because the Bible says we need to shut their mouths. So if you have the equipment to do that, do it.

And if you don't, you need to study to show that self -approved and get the equipment. And that's our job is to be salt and light and to be pillars of the truth.

So there you have it. All right, so look at, it's all about love. It's all about being spirit filled.

It's not about keeping a bunch of rules. Verse 10, love works no ill to his neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Remember that word means it makes it replete.

It fills it completely to the full. It's not more nearly full. It's not half full. It's not empty.

It is full if you're loving your neighbor as yourself. And if you love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul, you are keeping the law when you're in that mode.

So to introduce this concept of the law of Jesus Christ, as opposed to the law of Moses, let's talk about the difference between the law of Moses and the law of Jesus Christ, which you might sometimes call the law of love.

What are the differences? Well, I want to start here. And this is just some of the most magnificent scripture in the

Bible. Of course, anywhere where we are, that's the truth, isn't it? That's the case. But I want you to turn, if you have a

Bible, turn to John 1, verse 1, and let's read together. Follow along with me.

In the beginning was the word, and that's Jesus. We know that that's a title or a name for Jesus Christ in the

Bible. So in the beginning was Jesus. In the beginning was the word, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was

God. Don't let anyone ever try... These Judaizers, by the way, many of them are

Jewish believers. They say they're believers, but they're Jewish people who want to bring you back under the law. And most of them don't believe in the

Trinity. They say that that was brought in by Constantine and the

Roman church, and nothing could be further from the truth. I had a Jewish man debating me on this one time, and I said, look, so you think the idea of the

Trinity came into being after 300 AD then, or somewhere thereabouts? And he said, yes.

I said, well, if I could show you early church fathers who spoke about it around 150

AD, long before Constantine, would you then agree that it didn't get brought in by the

Catholic church, that it's always been in the Bible, and believers have always believed it? Would you go with that?

And he said, yes. So when I did the research and brought this to him, showed it to him, he didn't keep his word, right?

Well, that's how false teachers are. You show them the truth, it doesn't matter. They don't want to see the truth.

But genuine believers that love the Lord, if you show them truth, they will change their mind in a second, if you can prove you got it interpreted properly with the 10 proper rules of Bible interpretation, right?

So it's right here. Jesus was with God and Jesus was

God. There it is. There's a good portion of the Trinity. Other scriptures talk about the Holy Spirit and bring him into it as well.

But this is very, very clear that the deity of Jesus Christ, he is God. Now it says the same, that Jesus was in the beginning with God.

Now think about this. Jesus was with God and Jesus was God. So you're going to have to do some study to figure that one out, aren't you?

But it doesn't mean it's not true just because you don't immediately figure it out, right? It doesn't mean that because we're not

God. We're not omniscient. We don't know everything. God does, and he's the one that said this. So if this is confusing to you at this point in your

Christian walk, don't worry about that. You're not supposed to know the whole Bible instantly. You learn it line by line as you live your life.

But there's so much great information. If we ever had time to go over the Trinity and just talk about that, oh, wow, it's rich.

Take my word for it now and check it out later. The triune idea of God is a fact from scripture.

God is one God, but he subsists as three distinct persons, the Father, Son, and the

Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean three people like you and I think of people, all right? It doesn't mean it that way.

But what it means is that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are fully

God in essence, and yet they have personality, and which means they're a person.

So it's not just like Jesus is not just a manifestation of God and the Holy Spirit's not just a manifestation of God.

Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God, you see? So you get into that study, it's fascinating, but that's beyond the scope of this one.

For now, let's just believe the word together because it says the word was with God and the word was God. That's Jesus, all right?

The same was in the beginning with God. So if you go back to Genesis 1, 1, where nothing existed but God, well, you get to a point where there's not even a heaven because heaven is a place, you have to understand that.

Heaven has time in it. So this is before time, this is before space, this is before the universe.

This is when only God is. And yet to prove that there must be a Trinity, think about this,

God has always maintained through scripture that he is love. Not that he loves, but that he is love. You cannot be love if you don't have an object of the love by definition.

Therefore, he had to subsist as three distinct persons so that the father could love the son and the son could love the

Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit could love the son and the father and vice versa. So you couldn't have had

God being love if he didn't exist as a Trinity. Think about that, that's just another proof of it.

And the reason you say, why do you go into this? We all believe in it because there are people, especially if they're half

Jewish or part Jewish that come up to you and make you think they're the absolute genius with regard to the

Bible. And they'll begin to teach you the Trinity is not real, the Roman Catholics, Benedict, blah, blah, blah. And just don't listen to them, okay?

Believe the scriptures. The scriptures are replete with the doctrine of the Trinity. It starts out in the book of Genesis when it says, let us create man in our image.

It says that in the Hebrew, the grammar is plural. And how could it be plural if God doesn't exist as a triune being?

You see, so it's everywhere. So go with me on that, we'll keep moving here. So Jesus was, if you went back to the beginning when stuff was made, when time was made,

Jesus was already there. So what does that prove about Jesus? It proves that he was not created because he was already there before creation.

So he is God. All things were made by Jesus. Now, there you go. You'll certainly see most people in the churches

I grew up in, the Southern Baptist Church, so many of the people, I would say 90 % of the people, probably 95 % of the people sit there on Sunday, get spoon -fed and go home and never study the

Bible. So they don't know much about the Bible. But my friends back in those days, most of them, including myself, we believed that it was

God the Father who created all things that exist. And yet we were wrong about that.

The Bible says all things were made by Jesus. And without Jesus was not anything made that was made.

And now that tells us that the Father and Holy Spirit played a role in creation. We know that the Holy Spirit hovered over the earth when it was without form and void, and he brought form to it, and he brought the energy and brought it into, he ordered it, he put it in order.

So he played a role in it, but it was Jesus Christ who created everything that exists that's physical, including time.

So important to know. Now look at verse four. In Jesus was life, and the life was the light of men.

Now this brings us from Genesis into time and space, into the time when Jesus lived on this earth some 2000 years ago, and this would be true of us now as well, that in this world that God has created, and in the world of mankind with all the nations and all the leaders and everything, he's talking about leadership in Romans chapter 13, isn't it?

All of that, in all of it, Jesus is the light. There used to be a group of people called the

Quakers, and if you study the Quakers, if you study it in secular books, you get the idea they were good

Christian people, but really if you study the genuine truth of who they were, they were not good Christian people.

They were false prophets, and they believed that the Bible, the scripture was not important.

What was important was getting hold of the inner light within yourself as a human being, and that is proven so wrong throughout all of the

Bible, Genesis, the Revelation. Anybody who's looked at it at all would know that's not true, but they prey on gullible people.

The same is true today, and I will say this and make some of you angry, but the modern Pentecostal movement and charismatic movement are not much different than the

Quakers. Now, if you want to debate me on that, let's do it in private. I'll buy you lunch.

We'll have lunch together, Sam, we'll talk about it. It might even take longer than lunch. It might take a whole day, but I'll promise you

I've studied this for 40 years, and I've gone back and studied the church history of it going back 2000 years.

So I just need you to contemplate that I might be right about this, that the modern charismatic tongue speaking, faith healing, modern prophetic prophecy, all that stuff that they think is still operative, those people that believe that are no different than the

Quakers, and they were so, so far off, and they still are today.

So I know if you're like me, you want to know the truth. You don't want to just win an argument.

So I can show you the data from history. I can show you the data from scripture. I can show you the data about the

Quakers, and I can show you the true, genuine and powerful preachers that lived in that day and fought them, fought against them, and get you reading some of that and get you to take a look at it.

And only the Lord can open your eyes on it, though, if you're in disagreement with that. Now you say, well, don't you believe God heals?

I didn't say he didn't. We've had healings in our church, but David Mitchell didn't put his hand on them and heal them.

We prayed and asked God to do it, and that's how it's done in the church age. We are not apostles. There are no apostles still living.

They're all in heaven now. And those signed gifts that were given to that group of people to authenticate the new message of grace, which is what we're talking about here.

What is the difference between the law and grace? What's the difference between the law of Moses and the love of Christ?

It's the gospel. And no Jew would have believed this new gospel message if God had not equipped the apostles to be able to do miracles.

Because the Bible says the Jews require a sign. That's why you had those gifts. They're not necessary in the church age.

And therefore, as the apostle Paul said, they ceased in good order when it was time for them to cease.

All of them were gone by 300 AD, and I can prove it with church history and with scripture. And so what you're seeing today is a counterfeit of it.

Same thing the Quakers did. It's a counterfeit. And you say, well, I know it's real. Well, I know it's real too, but it's not the

Holy Spirit doing it. It's a different spirit. It's an unclean spirit mimicking it. So that can all be proven if a person has the patience to look at it.

But there's so many ungodly false preachers and teachers alive today that will not teach this correctly from scripture to their people, that the people are ignorant about it, and these false teachers prey on you.

And so please come out from that. Come out from among them, saith the Lord, and be separate.

Listen, the main thing in the church age is the word of God, the scriptures. It's a higher power than even when

God spoke with a voice and said, this is my son in whom I'm well -prayed. The scripture says that, that the scriptures are a more sure testimony than that.

And so that very group minimizes the scripture and wants you to go by what you're feeling in your heart, that inner light that's in you.

And God talking to you on the inside, that's more important. Tell me I'm wrong about that. That's exactly what they believe.

It's exactly what they say, and it's not new. The Quakers did it before them, and it goes all the way back 2 ,000 years.

You can see little groups of people here and there that Satan duped into that, but don't be a part of it.

So let's get to the scriptures here. All things are made by Jesus, right?

And without him was not anything made that was made. He is the light. You don't have an inner light, okay?

Men don't have that. Unless you're born again and you have Jesus in your heart, then you have it, but it's him.

It's not you. See, there's the difference between Quakerism and scriptural Christians, biblical

Christians who believe what the Bible says and not what these preachers on TV and all of these huge football stadiums that are healing people.

They're not healing people. And if they are, it's by Satan. So they're faking it just like the magicians did when

Moses threw his rod down and turned into a snake. They did the same thing. Moses picked up the snake and turned back into the rod.

They did the same thing. And you guys out there, what you do is when you see a miracle you just think it has to be

God doing it. And that's never been true. So you got to try the spirits, my brothers and sisters. So anyway, now look what

Jesus does do. He lives in our heart and provides the light to us. Verse five says, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not.

And there's where we need to dwell just for a moment. All right, so we had the law when

Jesus came, didn't we? In fact, when he was on the earth we were still under the law until after he died, was buried, rose, went to heaven and then sent the

Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And that's when the church started. That's where grace actually was the birthday of grace.

Now I know Jesus taught some grace before that. And so did the apostles and so did

King David in the Old Testament. In fact, it's all through the Old Testament. It's there, colors of it, little, little wisps of it were there.

The Jews never understood it. In fact, we'll see in this study that we're doing now that the Jews were actually offered grace rather than law and they rejected it.

And that's from a human viewpoint. That's why they got the law. We'll see that if you, maybe not today, but in this study.

So here's, if you want to start answering the question why did God predestinate that grace would come and law would go away?

Why did he make it that way? Why is it necessary? Well, here's the first reason in verse five because the darkness comprehended not the light.

When Jesus came into this world, the darkness could not understand it, did not want to understand it, did not wish to hear about it and it's still that way today.

So let's move on. Now in John chapter 14, I'm sorry, chapter one, verse 14, let's see another concept here.

And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Now this is just down in the same chapter. I just skipped some for sake of time.

So we're down more towards the end of chapter one of John. And this word, this is how we know that the word is

Jesus because look what it says. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father.

Well, who is the only begotten son of God? It's Jesus. That's who the word is. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

So that tells us there that the word existed before he was made flesh, does it not? He existed before anything was made because he is

God. All right. But the second person of the Godhead, the son of God was made flesh 2000 years ago in that manger.

And we just got through celebrating that at Christmas, didn't we? And then he dwelt among us and we beheld his glory full of grace and truth.

Now, John the Baptist bear witness of Jesus. And he cried out, preached saying, this was he of whom

I spake earlier. He that comes after me is preferred before me,

John said. And of his fullness have all we received and grace for grace.

That means some people receive more of it than others. And all of that is designed by God.

No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten son, which is the bosom of the father, he has declared him.

Now I want you to think about this. Moses never saw God the father. God the father is an invisible spirit being who exists outside of time and space and beyond even heaven.

The only thing, only part of the father that exists even in heaven is the Shekinah glory. The same thing that was in the wilderness tabernacle in the

Holy of Holies. He lets a little bit of his glory show through in the third heaven, but that's it.

He is not there. If he were there, time and space would be obliterated including everything in it, which includes us.

So that's why it's that way. And so Moses never saw God, but Jesus did because he is

God and he was with God and he was God. So Jesus is the only physical being.

He is the only, now he's the man. Now Jesus is the son of man, but he's also the son of God.

He is fully man and he is fully God. So now that he is fully man and exists in that state, he's the only man that's ever seen

God, right? And that's so amazing, so important to think about is that only he could actually bring to us the mind of God.

Moses could not do that. He could bring some of it because the Holy Spirit reveals some of it to Moses.

That's what John the Baptist meant when he said grace by grace. Some of us have more grace than others, but if you want to look at Jesus, it says he had grace without measure.

If you want to look at Moses, it said he had great grace by measure. He had a little bit of it like you and I do, but Jesus had all of it.

And so Jesus is the only one who really could bring the declaration of God.

Now this word declared in the Greek, it means to consider out is the literal translation of it.

It can mean to unfold. It can mean to consider something out loud or to contemplate something or to declare it once you've done that, you see?

And so what the Bible says is that Jesus was in the bosom of the father for all eternity before time began.

And then when time began at the proper dispensation of time, he was born in the manger and came into this world, became a man.

And then he declared the father to us because he's the only one that's ever seen him. Moses didn't.

No one had. David hadn't seen him. No one has seen the father. You say, well, Paul transported to heaven, so was John, but they didn't see the father because he's not there.

They saw the kind of glory, but not all of the father because only Jesus has ever seen that. So only

Jesus can properly unfold God the father. He can only be the one who has considered him for all eternity, even out loud.

Now, what does that imply when it says he can do it out loud? It means he can speak. That means he's in the physical world now.

He's in time and space because speech requires time. It has to go from my mouth to your ear.

It takes time. So Jesus had considered the father both outside of time and inside of time, and he unfolds the father to us and declares him and tells us all about him.

That's who Jesus is, right? And that's why grace is so much higher than law. Don't ever let someone say that God wants us to revert to law once that we have grace.

That's what these Judaizers, these Jewish believers will try to get you to do. Well, yeah, but you still need to worship on Saturday because that's the true

Sabbath. We're gonna talk about that detail when we get to that, but don't listen to them. They're totally wrong.

In fact, church history proves they're wrong. And there again, they'll say, well, it was Constantine and the Roman Catholics.

Boy, our friends that are Roman Catholics get blamed for a lot of stuff. And I say, well, they're the ones that made us start to worship on Sunday because true believers in the first century worshiped on Saturday.

Well, how about if we go back prior to Constantine and I show you church fathers, at least six of them who said, no, we already worship on Sunday, long before the

Roman Catholic Church ever existed. And this is why preachers will not show you this stuff. And it just leaves you prey to these liars who try to say this nonsense that, well, the only reason we worship on Sunday is because the

Catholics brought it in. True Christians never did. That's a lie, all right? Sounds good, especially if it's a

Jew telling it to you, but why does that Jew really want you to think that? That Jew wants you to think that so he can bring you under the law of the

Sabbath and you're freed from the law. That's for the Jews in earth and time. You're seated in the heavenlies.

You're seated in the heavenlies with Christ right now. You're above that earthly law. You have grace and I'm trying to show you the difference.

And it's gonna take me a while, but this is really getting a good start, don't you think? All right, so in Matthew chapter 17, verse five,

Peter wanted to build a tabernacle, if you remember, for Moses, right? And that represents the law.

He wanted to build a tabernacle for Elijah, which represented the prophets. And then he wanted to build one for Jesus, right?

And do you know that this is on the transfiguration, this part in Matthew chapter 17, transfiguration is what

I'm talking about. And you know, right, when Peter, with all of his boldness and zeal said, boy,

I'm gonna, man, I'm gonna, this is huge. I get to be a part of this. I'm gonna build a tent for Moses, which represents the law and Elijah, which represents the

Old Testament prophets and for Jesus. And you know what God the Father said? Now, you know how

I said, God doesn't come into time except for his Shekinah glory. Well, he can let his voice come into time like he did with the burning bush, like he did when

Jesus was baptized. Well, here's a place where he did. And the Father said, this is my beloved son in whom

I am well, please hear him. And he was God the Father. You know, Peter is a powerful dude.

He preached once and 5 ,000 people got saved. But before that, he made a lot of mistakes. He's like you and me, isn't he?

You know, he might be the only human I know of that got rebuked by the Father because God the

Father said, look, Peter, that may be your plan, but that ain't my plan because Moses and Elijah are not equal with the

Son of God. The law is not equal with the Son of God and grace. The prophets of the

Old Testament are not equal with the Son of God and grace. And that's one reason these charismatics, these shakers, these, you know, they wanna bring in prophecy.

So, oh, well, we have prophets. Y 'all don't, so we're higher than you. Actually, you got that backwards. The church age and the grace and the fact that in these last days, he has spoken us through his son, not through the prophets, according to Hebrews chapter one, verse one, that proves it's higher than that.

So don't go backwards. Don't go into that. Listen, you don't need prophets because you have the word of God and the

Holy Spirit to teach it to you. Check out 1 John, I believe chapter five, it'll tell you that.

You don't need that. Check out Hebrews 1 .1. It tells you that God doesn't do it that way. So if they're saying he does, then they make

God a liar, right? Well, they can't do that. So that tells me they are lying. Now, this was an important message for Peter.

Apparently it is for a lot of us. Being zealous of the law of Moses, Peter wanted to build an equal tabernacle to Jesus and God said, no.

And so this set the stage to help Peter learn what

Paul would later teach him again, right? Nick, you got to stop being a Jew. Okay. Now there's a lot,

I'm covering a lot fast. I know, but this is remarkable information. So important. Galatians 2 .13.

And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him in so much that Barnabas was also carried away with their dissimulation.

But when I saw, this is Paul speaking, when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel,

I said to Peter before all of them in front of all of them.

Now think about this. Peter had already been rebuked by God, the father from heaven.

Now he's having to be rebuked by Paul who was not even an apostle at first.

He's a latter apostle and Peter was one of the first apostles and now he's getting rebuked by Paul.

So I said to Peter before all of them in front of him, to his face in front of all of them, if you being a

Jew live after the manner of the Gentiles, not as do the Jews, then why are you compelling the Gentiles to live like a

Jew? So Paul said, look, when you're in private around the rest of us, you live under grace.

You walk with the Gentile Christians and you don't act like a Jew, but when the Jews come around, you switch and you act like a

Jew. That's not godly. You need to quit doing it, Peter. Hadn't God father already told him that?

Well, there you have it. We need to be reminded sometimes, don't we? All right, now, so he said, so God the father said, this is my son, my beloved son in whom

I am well pleased. Hear ye him, right? Now in Matthew 12, it's kind of interesting.

If you would turn to Matthew chapter 12, verse 17. You want to know why

I'm hurrying? I got to get this. This would be one of my fastest sermons ever. You guys are going to wish

I always preached from a ship because I want to be done right on time and I'm going to go explore this ship in a minute.

Who knows? I may not. If I get involved with this thing, it might be one o 'clock before I'm done or 1 .30 or two.

All right, so this is fascinating. Look at Matthew 12, 17. Why was it that God the father said, this is my beloved son in whom

I am well pleased. Hear ye him. Well, we know number one is because he's not going to put Jesus on equal ground with Moses or the prophets or any of the old

Testament. He's not putting the new Testament on the same ground with the old Testament. He's not putting grace equal with law.

He puts it far above it. And so it's interesting that in Matthew's account in chapter 12, when he refers to this event in the transfiguration, he actually shows that Isaiah the prophet is being quoted here.

Why was this? Why did this happen? Well, he says so that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of Isaiah the prophet in the old

Testament saying, behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, that's

Jesus, the only begotten son of God, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he shall show judgment to the

Gentiles. I love it when these false prophets say that, that in the book of Revelation after beyond chapter three, the church is no longer there and that it's all a

Jewish information and all the tribulation period's all about Jews. They are so wrong.

When the church age began, when Jesus came, he preached to the Jews, but he preached to the

Gentiles. Paul preached to the Jew first, but then he preached to the Gentiles. The Gentiles have always been included from that day forth throughout all eternity.

It will be that way. So I want us to go and look at this passage in Isaiah that Matthew is saying was being actually, when

God the Father spoke it to these people on the transfiguration on the

Mount, it was in fulfillment of a prophecy that Isaiah had already seen and told about.

Isn't that fascinating? So turn with me to Isaiah chapter 42, verse 19. All right, everybody shout when you're there.

Raise your hand when you get it. Isaiah 42, 19, you got it? I don't like it when

I preach, if you just listen. So I like you to see it.

It's God, it's God talking here. Isaiah 42, 19, who is blind, but my servant?

Or who is deaf as my messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect and blind as the

Lord's servant? I gotta ask you a question before we see the next two verses here. Who is God talking about?

I mean, God's speaking through his prophet Isaiah, but this is God. Listen, God's the author of this.

Isaiah was just the penman. God is speaking through his mouth. This is God speaking and he's asking the question, who is blind but my servant?

So who is this servant? He is deaf but my messenger. Who is this messenger that's deaf, this servant who's blind?

Who is this blind person who is perfect? Because remember, perfect doesn't mean sinless. It means that they have the oracles of God.

You know, they're not like Gentiles. They have the oracles of God. So who is this? These are the

Jews. He's talking about the Jews. All right, so that's who he starts out talking about in verse 19, but he says some sad things about them.

He says they are blind and deaf. Wow, and then he reemphasized blind right at the end of verse 19.

Now look at verse 20, seeing many things, but they don't observe. So the Jews saw a lot, didn't they?

But they don't observe with their mind. They don't observe with their intellect and their heart.

They don't contemplate these things like the crossing of the Red Sea. They don't contemplate that enough.

So these people, these people of God, these Old Testament people of God, the Jews, which these

Judaizers want you to be like them, mind that, think about that. When they try to get you to add law to grace, they want you to be more like these people that God's talking about here.

And we're not supposed to be like these people. So these very people of God in the

Old Testament, they saw many things, but they didn't observe any of it with their mind and their intellect.

They didn't contemplate it enough. Opening their ears, yeah, but they didn't hear it. They did not hear it.

They had ears, but they couldn't hear. Oh, they heard the words being spoken. They saw the things happen, but they didn't hear it with their heart and mind, and they didn't see it with their heart and mind.

The Lord is well -pleased for his righteousness' sake. He will magnify the law and make it honorable.

Now, the Lord here is talking about the fact that he is well -pleased with the

Lord Jesus Christ. But look what he says. He is going to magnify the law and make the law honorable someday.

Somewhere out in the future, Isaiah says, what do you think that's a reference to? All right, it is that people can't really understand and live the law in the

Old Testament because Jesus had to come and declare the Father to us. He had to show us the heart of the

Father. What's the law really about? How does it relate to grace and so forth? And so this is a really early prophetic reference to this before God the

Father spoke and said, this is my son in whom I'm well -pleased. It's a prophetic utterance of that.

Now, it's even more specific than that. But the context of it, if we go back to verse one in Isaiah 42, it says, behold my servant who

I'm uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delights. This is a reference to Jesus Christ.

And it says, I've put my spirit upon him and he will bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. Isn't it, there again, funny how they talk about just Jewish material in the tribulation, just about the

Jews. Well, no, because the prophet Isaiah said that Jesus is coming to bring judgment to the

Gentiles, okay, the Jews and the Gentiles, right? So, you know, if you're talking to a

Jewish person, a great thing to do is use some of these passages. So you might make note of them in the book of Isaiah because they do believe the

Old Testament. They just don't believe the New Testament, especially Isaiah 53, but this is great areas too in Isaiah 42,

I should say, in Isaiah 42 to show them Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, great stuff.

And then after you show it to them in Isaiah, then show it to them in the New Testament. And you might be thinking, why would

I do that? They don't believe it because it doesn't matter if they believe it, it's God's word. So read it to them, right? So look at it, it's talking about Jesus in verse two says, he shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street, which means he was meek.

He didn't just shout everything out and like some street preachers, where they make a fool of themselves,

Jesus was not like that, he was meek. And speaking of Jesus as how he walked on this earth, he was a bruised reed, a bruised reed, he will not break in other words.

Like he does not go around rebuking people other than the religious leaders.

And there's an exception to the rule, he nails them, the Pharisees every time, the Sadducees, he nails them every time.

But the common people, he treated them meekly and softly, like if they were a bruised reed, he wouldn't even break that.

See, he's very gentle. The smoking flack shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

Now you see, he takes the law and helps men understand it. He says, if you've hated a man in your heart, you've already murdered him.

That's what the 10 commandments mean. That's what Jesus taught. He shall not fail or be discouraged, the son of God will not be.

This is prophecy of Jesus coming, the first advent. He shall not be discouraged until he have set judgment in the earth and the aisles shall wait for his law.

I wanna tell you something great about that little phrase. Do you know who the aisles are? You say, well,

America is not listed anywhere in the Bible. Well, you just saw that's not true because it got listed right there.

Because even though America was not in the geography of the mind of the writers of the

New Testament, because they looked at the Roman world of that day, England was part of that Roman world.

And so the aisles happen to be in God's four ordained plan.

The aisles are the extension of the British empire throughout this world, which includes America as the greatest of all of them.

And that's what we are. And so it is reference. It is a reference to all the rest of the world other than the

Bible area around Jerusalem and Israel and Jordan and all that. It's talking about the whole rest of the world and the other parts of the world.

So Jesus is not gonna fail or be discouraged until he's brought truth and judgment to the whole earth.

Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out from it.

He that gave breath to the people that are on the earth and spirit to them that walk therein.

I the Lord have called thee in righteousness. I will hold your hand.

I will keep you. I will give thee for a covenant to the people. He's talking back to Jesus again now in verse six.

And for a light to the Gentiles. So God the Father says to Jesus, I've called you in righteousness.

It's right for me to do this. I've sent you to be God with us. You will be that part of me that the world can identify with and you will reveal the part of me that they can't.

You will reveal the invisible spirit, the Father, to them because they can't see me, touch me, smell me, or feel me.

They can't know me at all until you explain me to them. And so I will hold your hand, the

Father telling Jesus. I'll hold your hand. I will keep you. I will give you as a covenant or a promise to the people and for a light to the

Gentiles. The people is the Jews, the Gentiles are the other group. That's us. Isn't that beautiful? So the

Father holds Jesus' hand and guess who holds our hand when we start to sink into that water like Peter did? Jesus holds our hand and we're all connected by the

Holy Spirit. And he sent Jesus to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house, that's the

Gentiles, but it's also the Jews that he referred to at the beginning where he said, oh yeah, you see, but you don't observe.

You hear, but you don't hear. Them too, right? I am the

Lord. This is my name and my glory will I not give to another. Neither praise to graven images.

There's only one God. Behold, the former things are come to pass and new things do

I declare. Before they spring forth, I tell you about them. And that new thing, ladies and gentlemen, is the church age.

It is grace and he's telling the Jews about it in Isaiah some 2 ,600 years ago and 600 years at least before the

Messiah was born. He told the Jews, this is coming. God's gonna do a new thing. It's not like anything you've ever seen.

But the Jews didn't listen to that. By this time, by 300 years prior to the coming of Jesus, they were no longer taught scriptures like this one, even though they had the scripture, they didn't, but the priest had the scriptures.

They were no longer teaching from them. They were teaching from targums, which were interpretations or paraphrases of the scripture.

And they had totally changed Isaiah 53 and those targums and taken Jesus out of it. That's why they missed the

Messiah. And that's why I warn you guys to use the King James Version in English because it comes from the correct underlying

Greek and Hebrew and the modern English versions, all the other ones without exception, do not.

They're more like paraphrases and you don't wanna fall to the same gimmick that God's people already fell for before the first advent.

You need to be reading the right Bible, okay, please. I can, give me two years, I'll prove it to you.

Can't do it in five minutes, okay? So it's the same thing. They're changing the

Bibles, all right? There's a lot of scripture missing from the New American Standard, from the NIV.

Even from the thing they call the New King James, that is not a King James, that's a lie. So it's gotta be the

King James. Now, if you want one, it'll get rid of the archaic English. They're not printing it anymore because people don't want it, but it's awesome.

And it's called the New Schofield Study Bible. It's gotta have all those words in it. And it has say

KJV. And if you can find a used one, the New Schofield Study Bible, KJV, it will be the

King James with the correct Greek and Hebrew, but it will correct the archaic English. And that's really the only problem you have with the

King James anyway. So check that out. You can get them for anywhere from 50 to a hundred bucks. They're still out there.

All right. Sing unto the Lord a new song and his praise from the end of the earth.

What is this new song? It's the gospel of grace, ladies and gentlemen. It's New Testament versus Old Testament. It's grace on a higher level than the law.

It's a new song. Sing this new song to the Lord and praise from the end of the earth.

Ye that go down to the sea and all that is there in the isles that's America, that's all the other rest of the world on the other side is the

Holy land and the inhabitants thereof, let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice.

The villages of Keter doth inhabit. Let the inhabitants of the rock sing. Let them shout from the top of the mountains.

Let them give glory unto the Lord and declare his praise in the isles. Now, listen, that's talking about the gospel.

And this is in Isaiah 600 years before Jesus came and before Paul wrote about the gospel and John and Peter and all of them, but it will come to pass and it was prophesied.

Isn't that cool? The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. This is Jesus, right? He will stir up jealousy like a man of war.

Yeah, the Jews hated him, didn't they? And the Gentiles did too, the Jews and the Gentiles, the Romans killed him, didn't they?

He shall cry, yea, he shall roar. He shall prevail against his enemies. I have long time holding my peace.

I have been still and refrained myself. Now will I cry like a travailing woman, a woman having a baby.

Jesus says, I'm gonna shout out the gospel like that. I will destroy and devour at one time. I will make waste the mountains and the hills.

I will draw up all the herbs. I will make the rivers islands. I will draw up the pools. You know what?

He starts to refer out into our future now because at his second advent, he's not gonna be the suffering servant.

He's gonna be the one who destroys the enemies of God. And we'll be with him when he does that.

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. See, that's talking about the Jews, but it's also talking about the

Gentiles in particular. But neither one of them, from the Old Testament Jew to the

New Testament, you know, the early first two or three years while Jesus was still on the earth, those

Gentiles were blind, so were the Jews. And he says, he's gonna bring them to a new way.

I will lead them in paths that they haven't known. See, the Jew should have known this. He should have understood that there's gonna be changes.

But you know why God had to give those signed gifts to the apostles and the early church people, the early church prophets before Pentecost and for a little while afterwards, because he had to authenticate this new message.

No one would believe it. Even Isaiah said it, but they didn't believe him either. These things will

I do unto them, and I will not forsake them. They shall be turned back. They shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images and false gods and false

Jesuses and false Holy Spirits. They say to the mold of the images, you are our gods.

Here you deaf and look you blind that you may see. Who is blind but my servant? There's the

Jew again, right? Who's deaf? My messenger, there's the Jew. Who is blind as he that is perfect?

That's the Jew. Who's blind like the Lord's servant? That's the Old Testament Jew. Seeing many things, but thou observest not.

Open your ears, but they don't hear. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake.

He will magnify the law and make it honorable. And what's interesting in the Hebrew where it says the

Lord is well pleased, it reads almost identically to how God the

Father said it. This is my son in whom I am well pleased when he spoke at the transfiguration. And this is the fulfillment of this prophecy.

When the Father spoke at that moment in human history, it fulfilled the prophecy in verse 21.

But this is a people robbed and spoiled. They are all of them snared in holes.

This is, these are people that are confused by the law that think all it is is keeping a bunch of rules and not loving

God and loving their neighbor, you see. They are all of them snared in holes and they are hid in prison houses.

They are for prey and none delivered. This is people that believe false teachers. This is how they were when

Jesus came. This is how the Jews were. They'd been under false teachers for 300 years, teaching from targums rather than the scriptures.

They shall be for a spoil and none sayeth restore. See, none of the teachers in that day were saying, let me restore you the truth because they were teaching these lies.

That's why they missed their Messiah in the large part. Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear from the time to come?

You see, God had warned these first century Jews, hadn't he? 600 years earlier through his prophet

Isaiah, he warned them this is coming, but they still let it happen. Who gave Jacob for a spoil in Israel to the robbers?

Did not the Lord? He against whom we have sinned. And so here the prophet prophesized that Israel will reject their

Messiah. Israel reject true teachers and bring unto themselves false teachers.

And so God has a right. He is righteous in the fact that he is going to spoil

Jacob in Israel. And of course we know that within 70 years, actually only 40 years after Jesus Christ died,

Titus and the Roman empire came in and destroyed Jerusalem, didn't they? And destroyed

Israel. And they did not exist again until after Hitler had killed 8 million of them and the world felt sorry for them and gave them a new

Israel to live in over there. And so this was all fulfilled, right? They were not obedient to his law.

They didn't even understand his law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger and the strength of battle, and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not, and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.

So the Jew just couldn't see, could he? And in the real

Bible, there's no chapter. So let's just keep going. This is the next chapter, but it's really the same thought. It says, but now thus saith the

Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you.

Now see how God punished them and rebuked them and brought hardship on them and even removed them from their land.

And especially after they rejected Jesus and said, crucify him, crucify him. May his blood be on the head of our children.

And that spoke prophecy. And when Hitler came along, that one was fulfilled.

And he says, but I still am going to redeem you. I have called you by name.

You are mine. And here we see predestination. We see election. We see foreknowledge.

And we see that God knows who his children are, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Even before he made the world, he knew exactly who would be saved in the

Old and the New Testament. And when thou pass through the waters, if you're my child,

I'll keep you. That means the waters of trouble. And when you go through the rivers, the raging rivers of trouble in this life, they will not overflow you because you belong to me.

And when you walk through the fire, thou shall not be burned because you belong to me. Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for a ransom.

I gave Ethiopia, Saba, all of these nations are for a ransom for you. You will rule over them someday in the millennial kingdom since thou was precious in my sight.

You see, that's election. That's foreknowledge. God didn't love Israel because they're the strongest nation or the most obedient.

They were the opposite, the weakest and the most hard stiff neck of all people. He loved them because they were precious in his sight before he made anything.

They were his own children. That's predestination. That's what it's all about. It's not really that he had to elect or choose us.

It was a choice that never had to be made. We were always his children. He wasn't gonna make any other choice than that.

Thou has been honorable and I have loved you. See, God sees us as honorable even though we know we're not.

He sees us that way because he sees us all dressed up in the righteousness of Jesus. I have loved you from all eternity past into the present and always out into the future.

Therefore, will I give men for you and people for your life. Fear not for I am with you.

I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north, give them up.

I will say to the south, keep them not back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughter from the ends of the earth. You know what that is?

That's the rapture. That is the event when the Lord comes back at the second coming. And we go to him as Jesus taught it.

He said, it's like the buzzards will go to the dead animal. We'll just flock right to Jesus in the heavenlies when we see him coming back.

That's when the rapture will happen. And this is a description of it. 600 years before Jesus was born.

Even everyone that is called by my name. So everyone that the father knew as his own before the foundation of the world,

Ephesians chapter one. Everyone that he's always known that were his kids, every one of them will come to him.

He will lose nothing. Jesus said, no man can come to me unless the father draws him. And of them,

I will lose nothing, but will raise it up in the end. For I have created him for my glory and have formed him, yea,

I have made him. That means his elect, all of us who belong to the Lord.

And that's why he saved us. Well, that's all we have time for today, ladies and gentlemen.

And I'm really happy I was able to be with you. And I hope you were able to hear all of this.

Dave or Ben, maybe give me some confirmation that I'm still on. Yes, you are for sure.

Great stuff. It was crystal clear. So I think turning the camera off did the trick. Lord bless.

Lord bless. That's super. I'm so happy. All right,

Ben or Dave, I'll let you guys wind us down then. Excellent.

Thank you so much. That was a great sermon, David. I really appreciate it. It's funny, I noticed you threw some scriptures in there that you and I were studying just the other day.

So that's cool. Oh, that doesn't surprise me. Yeah, that happens sometimes. Love it.

Yes, it does. Well, why don't we close in a word of prayer then real quick. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you so much for this awesome time to come together and to learn more about you.

We just pray that you help us and guide us as we navigate this interesting world and we subject ourselves to the authorities that you've put over us.

Lord, help us to activate everything we do through agape love, which is the love that we can only get from you.

So please help us to do that. Lord, we love you. We thank you. We can't wait to see what you do next.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, guys.