Something Greater is Here

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Sermon by Josh Rice from Mark 2:23-3:12.

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Today's reading is Mark chapter 2 23 through chapter 3 12 1 through 12, sorry
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One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain and the
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Pharisees Were saying to him look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them have you never read what
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David did when he was in a need and was hungry? He and those who were with him how he entered the house of God in the time of Abathar the high priest
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And ate the bread of the presence which is not lawful for any But the priest to eat and also gave it to those who are with him
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And he said to them the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath So the
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Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath again, he entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand and They watched
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Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath So that they might accuse him and he said to the man with the withered hand come here
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And he said to them is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? to save life or to kill
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But they were silent and he looked around at them with anger Grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man stretch out your hand
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He stretched it out and his hand was restored the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the
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Herodians Against him how to destroy him Thanks Cooper.
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It's a it's always I think an astounding thing to hear lengthy Portions of Scripture read in a row.
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It strikes me as as I stood there listening and Some of you guys don't know that as a pastor and the guy that comes up to preach
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It's not often that you get to sit for longer stretches of time and listen to someone else Kind of go through the scripture and that's a that's a thing that I wanted to implement here and that we see going and it's
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A huge blessing to me and I think for us it helps me to not do our 15 -minute sermons Because it helps us to be in the text and to see the flow of it
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And I think that's incredibly important when we look at one like this morning where we have an argument
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That is in context from where we've been with the with the leprous man healed with the the demons cast out and and last week we looked at Jesus sitting with the tax collectors and the anger and the indignation of the religious the religious elite when they saw that and There is there is a cohesion to mark story
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And so this this chapter and this this portion about Sabbath is one that I think for first of all in context
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We have to understand that Jesus is looking for this confrontation and it comes off the heels of something He's been teaching which is what the nature of the kingdom of God is but also the rank obstinance and the hard -heartedness of the religious elite that shows the sickness of Israel in the time of Jesus and It occurs to me also that that we sit at a time in history in America where there's a lot of sickness
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Among the people of God It doesn't take far to look if I say it often if you brave the world of social media and in the
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Christian sphere you're gonna see a lot of ugliness a lot more ugliness than you see good because Over and over in the
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New Testament we're told that that the people of God are to be together that we're to be united and what we see is infighting and Fractiousness and I think the reason for that is much like what the
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Scribes and the Pharisees have going there is an idea That we're ghetto wised and they're in the ghetto of Jerusalem because of the big -bag forces of the
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Romans that have greater military power and are Hemming them in and then they have this kind of viceroy this this regional king called
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Herod Who we talked about last week who is a half Edomite? So he kind of has some kind of weird blood relation to the people of Israel, but they hate him
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They hate him so much and yet we see today That they don't hate him as much as they hate the one who would shake up their comfort zone
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Because people who start to live in a ghetto start to love the comforts of the ghetto
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They love the things that they can do in their own prison cell We saw saw this in 2020 that there was not a great outcry against the government for holing us up in our houses because what we really when we get down to it want to do is to watch
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TV and to play video games and to just Hang out and do nothing right And so what our overlords and oppressors in this world see is that hey
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It's easy to enthrall and enslave of people that don't want to build and don't want to fight But what
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Jesus does is he brings the fight and this passage today? It just it shows I think in such clear colors that we can say in the church
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And we have said for decades in the Church in America that we love Jesus and we follow him And I think that most of our churches in America would throw
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Jesus out of the church If he came in with the teaching that he brings and so here we go. It's a difficult one
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I think of the Ten Commandments The most difficult one for us to understand and the one that we grapple with is
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The command to honor the Sabbath and to keep it holy I've done a Podcast episode on it because there was questions about how do we follow the
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Sabbath if we're even supposed to follow the Sabbath at all Today, is this the one commandment that sticks out where the other nine are still operative?
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So I hope to answer some of those questions today while not losing the point and the point is this
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Do not miss Who has come and do not miss what the point of the people of God is the people of God are here to give the message?
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Of the king and we're not to be forced into ghettos We are to live life as fearless men and women because we don't fear death and we don't fear sin
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And we don't fear eternal judgment because we have none of those things our God has conquered death
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Our God has conquered our fear of judgment because the one who rules the world is the one who judges us and when he opens the
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Books what he's going to see on us is that our punishment has been taken by Jesus Christ Men and women we have nothing to fear nothing at all to fear and yet We get in our enclaves
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And I think what we try to do is we try to hold on To what little we have and we're afraid of things that shake up that order and it should not be so So let's get into the text the first the first argument the first Movement of this is at the end of Mark chapter 2 which
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Cooper just read and this is talking about the disciples passing through grain fields And they're very hungry
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Obviously and what they're doing is they are going through the grain fields is they're picking the heads It might have been barley
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Okay, and they are taking the heads off of this grain and they're rubbing it in their hands to kind of mill it
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Okay, and to get the husks off of the grain and eating the grain now look if you've ever eaten raw grain before I'm gonna tell you you'd have to be pretty hungry to want to eat that It would be like going in your kitchen today being famished and grabbing a spoonful of flour and putting it in your mouth
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This is this is not a thing I would advise doing okay It's not gonna be pleasant for you, but it shows the hunger and we we in our fat
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American world We can't imagine hunger like this oftentimes, but as these men are going through the the fields
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They're picking these grains and we're gonna see a common theme here which is the Pharisees and the leaders of the religious system laying in wait and watching and Their first reaction is to accuse and that sounds like the one whose name is the accuser in Scripture and so I don't think that I'm going very far off the field to say that these religious leaders are acting more like Satan than They are acting like priests of God in this text
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And so they're they're going around the rubbing and the Pharisees say why are they doing? What is not lawful now?
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That's a huge premise to accept, isn't it? Jesus does not accept the premise But instead what he does because again, that's a big thing
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If you say why are they doing what's not lawful? Then you have to make an excuse and you have to say well great needs driving them and that's greater than the law
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But Jesus doesn't accept that premise and he turns it back around on them And he asked them a question that they were gonna have a very difficult time answering and he says
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Simply put did David do wrong? Whenever he was hungry and he entered into the house of God and ate the bread of the presence
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Which it was unlawful now we it was not too long ago that we studied that exact chapter
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It's 1st Samuel chapter 21 if you remember David went into the house of the
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Lord and he ate the showbread because Abba a thought it was actually his father probably and there's some textual variant stuff that we can wonder about here
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I think the Abba a thar becomes the priest of David and so he gets carried with the lineage Okay, and he would have certainly been in this temple
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But David eats the bread and he gets armed, right? He's given a sword and doe egg is there watching and he like the
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Pharisees in this story goes back to Saul and He tells Saul that the priest had given
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David Armory and had given him provision and Saul goes back and kills everyone in the temple and Abba a thar escaped
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Right. So in that story, we remember that no one did anything wrong except doe egg
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That's how the narrative goes. And so Jesus is asking them. Okay, so as your great King was he a sinner?
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When he went into there and ate the showbread, they don't want to answer that They don't want to answer this and then he says something that's very amazing
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He says the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath and this is the crux of his argument
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So what Jesus is doing is he is going to try to prove his argument and the argument is the
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Sabbath was made for man And not man for the Sabbath He does this based on four premises and I do have these listed out anytime
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I'm gonna give you a list. I have it in my notes because that's a surefire way to get myself lost premise number one
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Here we go. So we're going to prove That the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the
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Sabbath premise number one The action of the disciples in this passage was expressly allowed
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Deuteronomy 23 25 when you enter your neighbor's standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hands
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But you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor's standing grain So what the Pharisees were doing in this chapter is they are arguing that picking a few heads of grain out of a field was reaping and Reaping was against the
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Sabbath now, I'm hoping you're a smart audience And so I'm gonna try to pull you along this thread so that when we get there
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You're already gonna know what the Sabbath is actually about because God doesn't make arbitrary capricious laws
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He doesn't he doesn't bureaucrat us to death He makes ten laws and we're supposed to understand the wisdom of those ten laws.
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So premise one Jesus does not grant the premise the disciples were allowed to take grains from the field
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Whether they were hungry or not It would be like walking through a vineyard and taking some grapes and somebody saying that you're harvesting the vineyard.
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I Remember that when I was when I was a kid in in FFA at Prairie Grove High School.
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We had a blueberry patch out there and Those of us who were related to the ag teacher or who were very involved in the
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FFA We had to go out and pick these blueberries and I'm gonna tell you Going through there and grab it a couple to put in your mouth would not be considered reaping
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Because you would go through two bushes and fill up two gallons with these blueberries That's called harvesting harvesting takes a lot of work.
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That is labor for the day That's not what the disciples are doing here so premise number one what they're doing is not against the law and What the
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Pharisees had done is they had prohibited 39 types of work on the
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Sabbath in their writings and in their tradition These things are ridiculous guys and they exist today.
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Did you know this a few weeks ago? Kelsey now most of our friends know this we were trying to buy an oven
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All right, and as you're looking in the ovens these things range from $300 to like $15 ,000
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Okay, who knows which one's the best but on the whole grid of things that you're looking for There's a line on there.
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And did you know that you can get ovens that comply with the Sabbath? It's actually a line on the grid
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Does this oven comply with the Sabbath and presumably what that means is that oven when it lights doesn't create a spark?
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Because if you turn a knob or you push a button and it creates a spark you have just broken the Sabbath because you've made fire
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This is what we're talking about here Okay, you can't push back your chair because you might make a furrow in the earth
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That's what these 39 laws were right and so what Jesus is doing in a way is he's looking at these guys and he's saying you are insane and Your laws are stupid
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Okay, that's what he's saying. So he doesn't create their premise, but he's much smarter than me So he makes an argument and boxes them in a couple of times and this interlude with the with the grains
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He goes right back to their ancestry and he attacks them based on what they are staking their whole claim on Their whole claim is we are the people of God David was our great
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King. And so Jesus says was David wrong Did he befoul himself because if you break the
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Sabbath you're cut off from your people So, where are you gonna do here? Which way is it? So that's premise one.
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They didn't do anything wrong premise number two in times of driving need a man could break
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Lesser laws in order to uphold greater laws You didn't have to lay down and die on the
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Sabbath Because it was the Sabbath if you needed to eat you could eat and that's where the
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David argument comes in is that it would Have been better to break the lesser law of the showbread not to say that that law is not important but what was more important was to feed the man of God who was going about God's mission who was famished and who was going
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To die if he wasn't outfitted This was a dire circumstance and this is why the the
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Pharisees here are put in such a trap So that's premise two. You can break lesser laws in times of dire need, right?
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I think I did this a few weeks ago You're able to lie if it's going to save life now not in an arbitrary capricious way
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But if someone's knocking at your door asking with the person they're gonna wrongfully kill you can lie to them and not feel it in Your conscience the lying then is a lesser law than the law of preserving life
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All right premise number three Priests were allowed to do servile work in order to get double sacrifices prepared offer new showbread and Circumcised when the eighth day fell on a
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Sabbath Okay, so I don't want to stretch this one too much because we're gonna come back here later But there were exceptions to the
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Sabbath work laws where the priests who are about the work of the temple Could work. So let me tell you this if you are a
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Sabbatarian today Which I don't know if any of you are and there are many of them in the reform camp and we'll talk about that later
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Then according to the strictest interpretation of Sabbatarianism, they also hold out exception because I am working right now
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Okay, this is a vocational ministry that I'm engaged in but that work being oriented around the temple
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Which the church is the new temple that is accepted Okay, no one would be saying that I'm breaking the
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Sabbath by preaching on the Lord's Day Understand no one would be saying that Samuel's breaking the
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Sabbath by leading us and singing on the Lord's Day Okay, so we see that there's carved out exceptions and disciples are hungry very hungry hungry enough to be eating raw grain
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Premise four and I think this is where it starts to hone in for us The Sabbath is not an arbitrary rule
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That man was made to follow But instead it was baked into nature and made as a gift for man because we need to rest.
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I want to read The commandment about the Sabbath in its entirety here. So bear with me Deuteronomy 5 verses 12 through 15
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Observe the Sabbath day to keep it. Holy as Yahweh your God commanded you six days
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You shall labor and do all your work But the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God in it
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You shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter or your male slave or your female slave or your ox or your donkey or any of your
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Cattle or your sojourner who is within your gates so that your male slave and your female slave may rest as well as you
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You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and Yahweh your
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God brought you out of there with a mighty hand in an outstretched arm and therefore Yahweh your
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God Commanded you to observe the Sabbath day There is a lot there and I could preach three or four sermons on that text alone
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Ten sermons probably but let's let's try to sketch out my my point and I think
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Jesus's point is the Sabbath is not arbitrary as He rounds into his conclusion right that man was was made the
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Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath So what do we have to look at here? First of all, you can catch a spirit of the law that there's hierarchy baked into the
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Sabbath command You see that that a wicked man would make his slaves and his oxen work every day of the week and it would be just like when the people were in Egypt and they were oppressed and they were
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Crying out to the Lord because they were being oppressed by cruel taskmasters Who were making them build bricks and labor every single day and we know what happens to the human body when we labor every single
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Day without rest things start to break things start to break And so there's a hierarchical thing that if we do not follow the
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Sabbath Then what we're doing is we're showing fundamentally that we do not trust in the Lord to provide for us
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The Sabbath was made for man Okay, the Sabbath was made for man the
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Sabbath was made because man needs rest The Sabbath was made most of all because man needs to trust
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God So everyone who wants to work every single day is saying that I'm trusting in my labor and I'm trusting in my work to make my life right and Instead what we do on the
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Sabbath is we give up 1 7th of the days of productivity And we're gonna trust the Lord to provide for us
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That's how it's not arbitrary it's not about picking a couple of heads of grain It's about vocationally striving so that you would take the place of God and providing for yourself by your own work in your own labor
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So, where are we now? Putting these four premises together I want to highlight them and say first number one what the disciples were doing was lawful
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Number two the great need made this permissible Number three temple work trumped the strict rules of the
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Sabbath and number four Sabbath commands were to trust God for provision and obtain his rest
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So what does all this mean? this all means that God gave us the
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Sabbath because he wanted to show who he is and He wanted to show that he is a God to be trusted
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And so people were following the Sabbath before the commands in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 were given
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The Israelites were trying to obey the Sabbath before it was codified in the Ten Commandments because the
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Sabbath is baked into creation There is no escaping it. So our questions today like does the
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Sabbath command still apply? It's like that's a really stupid question It's always applied and it always will apply when we come into our final rest with Christ Then we enter into the
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Sabbath that is the consummation Adam and Eve had a Sabbath not because they were toiling with the ground
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But because they're creatures not creator and God himself in a way Condescended to rest on the
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Sabbath to show his people the pattern of life So have the Pharisees missed the point here.
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I would say yes in an extremely dangerous way What they've done is taken something that's supposed to point you to trusting in God for sustenance
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And they've taken it and said trust in ourselves in the following of tradition so that you can be right.
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That's what they've done And they've missed something very important our parallel passage in Matthew 12 says this and I think this this is what got the title of the sermon today and It's in this piece that Matthew writes verses 6 and 7
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But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here Remember that argument the
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Sabbath was about the temple and the Sabbath even gave way to the to the activities in the temple the sacrifice
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Trumped the Sabbath for the priests make sense He says but if you had known what this means
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If you'd known what this means this right here. I desire compassion and not a sacrifice
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You would not have condemned the innocent. This is what the priests are doing. This is what the
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Pharisees are doing So they've missed something right they've missed something greater because in their adherence to the law
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They've missed the whole point of the Sabbath And so when confronted with this and Jesus confronts them with this in the end of Mark chapter 2, what do they do?
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Well, he is invoked 1st Samuel 21 What did Saul do in 1st
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Samuel 21? What they're about to do he doubled down He doubled down.
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So let's look at it as we turn to page mark chapter 3 We have another
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Conflict that revolves around the Sabbath and this one is much worse because when we find it I want you to look at verses 1 and 2 he entered again into a synagogue
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Should have been a place of safety for the Son of Man, right? He is God This is his temple his synagogue he enters in and it's the most dangerous place that's showing the sickness of the people and There was a man there with a withered hand and they were watching him to see if he would heal him on the
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Sabbath So that they might accuse him it's just like dough egg and It's just like Saul so these men are laying in wait and they see a man with a withered hand
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Who can't use it and in this time? What what good is this man? Is he gonna be able to work the fields?
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Is he gonna be able to blacksmith? It's gonna be a tough life for this man. Remember just like the demon -possessed man.
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Just like the man with leprosy It's a dangerous existence for a man that has a withered hand. He can't work
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He's gonna have a hard time taking care of his family and these men see him and what they are looking at is
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Is you just gonna try to heal him on the Sabbath? So that they can accuse him
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These are men of the spirit of dough egg. They are accusers. They are liars and Jesus knows they are murderers
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He says to them this this is incredible He says to them is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the
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Sabbath? To save a life or to kill What does he mean by this? What does he mean?
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I? think number one You would understand is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath and everyone would say yes
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It has to be lawful to do good It has to be lawful to do good all the time because goodness is righteousness doing good is following the law of God We know that they knew that Everybody knows that it's not good to do harm on the
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Sabbath So if you can heal a man with a withered hand and you choose not to do it
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Are you doing good or harm? This is the question and the answer to any thinking person is
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Obviously, it would be harm to not heal him and it would be good to heal him and then Jesus pushes the envelope so much harder
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Don't miss it. He says to save a life or to kill now We talking about is
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Jesus gonna save a life here. I Mean you can get there figuratively right by restoring a man to his capacity vocationally and all that sort of thing
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But I don't think that what that's what Jesus is doing He's using a couplet here and the second part of this couplet in the parallel passage in Luke It tells us that Jesus knew their thoughts and he discerned their thoughts now
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Look, we always know that Jesus knows and discerns the thoughts of the people. He's talking to he always knows that but when
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When the writers of the New Testament slide that phrase in there, we're supposed to be aware keenly so that we would understand the discourse
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He understands their thoughts So Jesus knows that what they're thinking in their hearts right now is we wanted to accuse him so that we can kill him and this
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Is escalated since last week hasn't it since what we read last week? They're trying to feel him out and they're trying to save their power structure and save their position
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But today what Jesus does is he says is it lawful? Is it good to kill on the
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Sabbath? Who is it good to kill on the Sabbath and we know from the Old Testament law that it was good for the priest
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To kill a sacrifice on the Sabbath and so there's so much typology going on here
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Right that it will be good for the Lamb of God to sacrifice and to die
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Right, and then he will do the greatest work of all in rising on the Lord's Day, right?
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And all of this happens around the Sabbath not on it, but around it but in our passage today what we see is that he looks at them and he says you are plotting to kill on the
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Sabbath and I am looking to heal a man and this also is another thing too if this is actually the
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Son of God if He is the one who has created the Sabbath remember what he said at the end of chapter 2 if he's the
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Lord of the Sabbath then he's also the Lord of the creation because the Sabbath came from creation So Jesus once again, just like in the
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Daniel prophecy when he declares himself to be the Son of Man Who is the Lord of the Sabbath? He is telling them very clearly.
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I created the Sabbath I created everything and so I make the rules of the Sabbath You remember that part that you're quoting in Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20.
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I wrote that that's my word I am the Word of God And so when he makes that claim it angers them and they lay in wait to accuse him and then he perceives their thoughts
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And he says is it good to kill a man? Is it good to murder on the Sabbath? What do they say?
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nothing nothing and This is the sinner's response.
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Is it not to the confrontation of the gospel and the confrontation of God's Word the sinner's response is nothing or anger
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Great anger and these guys are seething they are angry And so they go to their enemies that they hate to conspire to kill the
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Lord of Glory Because he's got them trapped Let's step back a second
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Just imagine imagine sitting there And imagine it being a man who hates
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Jesus so much That you're laying in wait to see if he's going to miraculously heal someone so that you can cut him off from the people
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That's what they want to do. All right Imagine thinking that it's a bad thing for him to heal this man and imagine thinking that it's going to be a difficult
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Thing for this man to heal a man of a withered hand. It's not difficult for Jesus and it's not work
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He created this man He created all of us and in a spoken word
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Jesus Controls the storms of the earth the seas the currents the falling stars the cosmos
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Where you go to and fro where every sparrow flies Where every snowflake is gonna land today the incomprehensibility of the power of God should blow us away every day and to totally miss
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That and to think that Jesus is going to be laboring on the Sabbath to heal this man's hand is to miss the plot entirely and Their hardness of heart has grave consequences
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Terrible consequences and we see here that Jesus is angry and we should take note of that And there's been a theme that comes up several times
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The Jesus is angry at this hard heartedness So what makes him angry and we should ask that question today?
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Are there things that we can still do today that make Jesus angry? This is not the Jesus that's talked about much in the church.
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Is it? But Jesus is immutable He does not change and so Jesus still gets angry today.
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Does he not and There are things to anger him. So what angers Jesus lack of repentance?
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What angers Jesus is willful blindness what angers Jesus is obstinate stupidity
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These men should have known better these men did know better and These men chose to hold on to their pride because pride goes hand in hand with blindness and hard heartedness
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When a man thinks himself great he's blind to his Creator and he's hard -hearted toward his fellow man
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He doesn't care about the sufferings that of the people that he deems to be less than him less important than him
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And so he misses the grace of his God and the grace of his Creator and that makes God angry
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Look I can I Can enjoy doing that because as a man who likes to preach the gospel
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I think the anger of God is an integral part of understanding the gospel because with his grace and forgiveness
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We have to understand what we're forgiven and given grace from and that is as Jonathan Edwards wrote and preached
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It's the anger of God. We are sinners in the hands of an angry God Edwards Edwards compared
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God to being like a spider who was stooped over a kill in the web and That is sinful fallen man who raises his fist at God and says
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I'll have my own pride. Thank you very much I'm gonna keep my own structures and I'm not going to listen to you
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That is dangerous Very very dangerous and Jesus calls it out and he has shamed it.
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And so these men scuttle off To the ones the very people that they were angry with Jesus for consorting with Matthew last week, right?
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They were like that guy's a tax collector for Herod We hate Herod and now what do they do?
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They go straight to Herod It's just like all the regime evangelicals we got today. Oh Man, you shouldn't be involved in the government like it's a different kingdom all that stuff
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The first time you get any sign of trouble here comes the handout. Come on Big Daddy government
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Give us some money so we can continue to do ministry. This is the scourge. I hope you understand that it's
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Solomon said There's nothing new under the Sun and that's exactly what these men were doing 2 ,000 years ago is the first time that they didn't like what was going on a temple the first time
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But they didn't like the grace of God They went to their enemies to stick out their hand so that they can have murderous plots against people.
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They disagreed with religiously It's ridiculous and it's happening right now
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It's happening even as we speak and it's happening to a far greater extent than it was in this day
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Out of the one hand we'll say Oh the government's so evil out of the other hand. Give us some money.
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It's terrible So let's take a break a second And I want to talk about the Sabbath today because I think it is a question
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And I think we have to understand it pastorally But I also want to zoom out to a meta Idea here also and this is the idea of the
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Pharisees and the scribes that what they're trying to do here at the bottom line Is they're trying to protect their turf? Right what
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Jesus has come in and done is Jesus has come in and caused a stir and this stir has gotten people to start asking questions and It's very uncomfortable for the leaders who kind of have this locked down They come they get their meat they get their money and the people are coming and they're peaceful in the temple every week
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And they've really got their thumb on everybody and Jesus is starting to disrupt that and I think for us in the church It's a constant danger for us to think.
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Hey, here's the goal. We come on Sunday. We get really comfortable We've got our thing going. We don't want anything to mess that up and so what happens is we start getting really resistant to aggressive ideas and Ideas that make us uncomfortable so we should avoid that Discomfort is not a bad thing
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You hear me discomfort, it's not a bad thing our whole life is not about the pursuit of comfort Our whole life is about the pursuit of spending everything to make spiritual friends in heaven using our discernment using our energy
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Using everything we have to do the best job We can at work to the best job we can with our family to lay it all on the line for Jesus Christ And that means that we we grow here and we strive forward for the prize knowing that we enter that rest
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Ultimately when we see Jesus at the end But we have already entered that rest meaning we can lay down our fear and our worry right now
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So let's not fall into that camp, but on the Sabbath specifically We should see notes on the
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Sabbath. Here's the question. How do we follow the Sabbath today? How do we follow the Sabbath today if at all? Well first we have to see that Jesus was removing legalism from the
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Sabbath He was removing these 39 traditions and all of these rules Because these rules were never the point.
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So what we should know today is we should not put those rules back in place Okay, it's kind of just like the
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Judaizer stuff that was going on Galatians. What we shouldn't do is go Oh, well, we need to go back to what they were doing before Jesus because that makes us feel a lot better And look, here's what we do when we get ghetto eyes
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We what we like to do is we like to really focus on the outward appearance Because we like things that we can understand and we like it when
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Everybody's kind of doing the same thing and we can see that they're doing the same thing that makes us feel comfortable And that's why in our day as we've been beleaguered in our church and in America What we try to do is we try to lean in on what we can see and there's a renewed emphasis on rules
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It's true. Okay, and look I could get myself in trouble, but it goes all the way down the line. We rage on social media
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About Sabbatarianism head coverings food like it's just it's all the things that Paul said like Don't be worrying about Sabbaths and feasts and festivals and all this kind of stuff
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And yet what we do is that's all we worry about. All right. So first of all, let's stop that. Okay Let's not put the legalism back in Christianity.
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All right, that would be a good start Okay, second thing we have to understand. This is a this is a premise but it's also it's just hard to argue against it
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And no one really tries Sabbath is rooted in the natural law That means that it is rooted in the law of creation.
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God made the Sabbath He instituted it and it was baked into the world because it was the seventh day
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So there's no escaping that the rhythms of people and the rhythms of time go with there being a
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Sabbath rest. Okay, but Here's the but The Sabbath was also the sign of the
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Mosaic Covenant if you don't believe me a lot of people haven't heard this Here we go. Exodus 31 13 through 14
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Listen to this But as for you speak to the sons of Israel saying you shall surely keep my
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Sabbaths for this is a sign Between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am
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Yahweh who makes you holy Therefore you shall keep the Sabbath for it is holy to you Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death for whoever does any work on it
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That person shall be cut off from among his people So here's the deal if you don't follow the
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Sabbath, you're not one of God's people Because that would be like saying you're a Christian and you refuse to get baptized
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Or go to church does baptism save you no way But the refusal to take on the sign of the
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Covenant is a refusal to be Explicitly a part of the Covenant Why would you do that a lot of times?
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I think it happens in ignorance and there's patience with God for that and there should be patience from elders Okay but at the same time a
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Stubborn refusal to do the simple thing that God has commanded you do as a sign of his covenant his promise is probably a sign
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That you're not in that covenant and promise and so it was with the people after the Mosaic law is given and the
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Sabbath is Codified to disobey the Sabbath is to say I'm not one of God's people and so you're put to death and you're cut off That's what happens when you break covenants.
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You're cut out. That's what happens with divorce The covenant is broken and you're cut out This corresponds to the sign of circumcision given in Genesis 17 to Abraham.
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Listen, but an Uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin that person shall be cut off from his people
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He has broken my covenant So the Covenant of Abraham if you do not get circumcised, you're not in the
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Covenant of Abraham right You're cut off from the people. So today do we have to get circumcised?
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most emphatically not most emphatically not Paul has explicitly told us this because it was confusing right
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Paul said it is neither here nor there if you get circumcised So what does that tell us that tells us very clearly that the
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Covenant with Abraham is not operative Do you understand that it's not operative if it was if it was operative you must get circumcised
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Paul says you don't need to get circumcised. It's no big deal. Therefore this covenants out.
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So are we still in the land? Honoring the Sabbath this way The answer is clearly no because the writer of Hebrews who
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I think is Paul through some kind of means he says this we read Part of it for if Joshua had given them rest.
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He would not have spoken of another day after that So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his
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Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall into the same example of disobedience
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If that's not the Mosaic Covenant being made obsolete I don't know how he could say it more clearly except he does a few chapters later when he says, yeah, that's obsolete
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He literally says that it's obsolete. So here's the thing. Here's what we know The covenant of the the
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Sabbath is not a sign of a covenant that we're in today Okay That is biblically clear
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And so what we know today is that the Sabbath is fulfilled through Jesus Christ and we enter his rest
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Through him we should diligently seek that That means diligently seek
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Christ to enter the rest that he's given us Not the other kind of rest because we would fall into the same
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Disobedience that the sons of Joshua fell into as they tried to follow that rest. That was the flaw in the
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Old Covenant There were people among who were circumcised who entered into the Sabbath rest every seventh day, but who knew nothing of God there it's impossible to enter the rest of Christ and to not
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Consummate and find that rest eternally because there is no fault in the New Covenant Because the New Covenant will never be obsolete like the old one was this is a hard teaching and like I said
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There could be many many sermons about this but understand for us today There is no legalistic observance of the
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Sabbath because the Sabbath was a sign of the Mosaic Covenant that is not operative today
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Now the moral law is operative because if you love Jesus, you will obey his commandments What are his commandments the
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Ten Commandments and so I can say two things, right? I will never try to burden anyone's conscience
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If someone says I'm a Sabbatarian and they want to follow the Sabbatarian say on this day I explicitly will not work whatsoever.
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I won't even cook on this day and I'm gonna say God bless you, brother I will not try to stumble you in your conscience and I will not try to lead you away from this
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But what the law explicitly says today in the New Covenant is that we are not bound by those kinds of traditions
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But there is another thing and this is the both sides of my mouth. I would also advocate for so -called blue laws in our culture
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I would love for our government to shut everything down on Sunday Because it would show that the ground is enriched and that human beings flourish and that it is a burden on people's conscience to put people to work just like we were in Egypt every single day because even though we're no longer under the operative nature of the
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Covenant of Moses We are still in creation and the Sabbath was made for man and it is baked into the natural order
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And so it is good for God's people to enjoy a day of rest and we should do so We should not throw each other out of the kingdom over this we should bear with with one another
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But we should also understand that we don't get salvation through the Sabbath and we're not identified with God's people
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Through rigid observance of a bunch of traditions of the Sabbath, but let's keep it simple most most through Protestant history have
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Connected to the Sabbath to the Lord's Day Because Jesus rose and gave life and you enter into his rest through his resurrection and so Sunday is the day where we set aside to worship the
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Lord and I think it is good and proper thing to not labor on the Sabbath and The Sabbath today is the
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Lord's Day. And so we come and we worship and we observe that pattern. So enjoy it Enjoy his rest physically, but more than that enjoy the rest spiritually that allows you to trust him and take a day off Don't be burdened by legalism
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Don't be burdened by these strict rules and burdens, but also be soft -hearted to those who have weaker consciences on the issue
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All right last thing It's the danger and another curious thing as we go through Jesus withdrew to the sea with the disciples and a great
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Multitude follows him So on the one hand the the scribes and the
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Pharisees are trying to shut this down and this kind of seems disconnected But it's not because as Jesus has continued to heal and Jesus has continued to preach
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What happens is the crowds are pressing around him and what's interesting about the last? Six verses that we're looking here is that what these crowds are these crowds are
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Gentiles Look at it verse 8 From Jerusalem from Edomia, that's
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Edom. Okay beyond the Jordan in the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon Those people are all
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Gentiles. They are coming to him. So look what happens you Man, it's like the last five years of Learning this in the
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New Testament It's just a it's it's a wildly different book when you take it in context
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It really is and I've missed so much I think in my life, but here's what happened You go into the synagogue and the people are laying in wait to accuse you
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And so what happens judgment falls on the religious leaders of Israel and that opens the door to the
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Gentiles Jesus's mission was to the Jews Jesus's mission was to the
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Jews, but what did they do? They rejected the chief cornerstone and so what happened is as they rejected the door opened and The New Covenant promises fulfilled the covenant of Abraham by saying that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky and that everyone who blesses him would
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Be blessed and everyone who curses him would be cursed. Is that talking about ethnic Jerusalem today? No way the
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Abrahamic Covenant is not operative But still today if you bless the people of God Then you will be blessed and if you curse the people of God you will be cursed and the people of God are in this room right now the people of God are
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Jesus's people who have entered his rest just like typologically they did in the time of Joshua and so the door is open and all of the all of the deplorables of Israel are coming around pressing around Jesus and they don't know exactly why yet but they're pressing on him because they just want to touch him so that they can be healed and It's a it's a theme that he has to withdraw himself
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Remember, he keeps going back out into the wilderness to pray and here he goes out onto a boat And I think this boat shows a couple of things the boat shows that he's withdrawn from them
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But also that he's going to preach from the boat because what they don't need the most what they don't
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Primarily need is the healing that could come from touching him or being close to him What they need is forgiveness that's going to be given through his preaching they pressed hard around him and There's demons there
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Let's not miss it. Everyone's flocking to see the show right everyone Jerusalem Judea and Everybody around is coming around to see what
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Jesus is going to do And so we have to take care to avoid doing ministry to get the show
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Now that seems kind of ironic in a room like this, right? There's not a ton of people in here and this is the faithful here this morning
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But look if God does grant us success, right and he's already granted us a huge measure of it with planting a church across town
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I mean less than two years into our existence That's an amazing thing and glory to God for that but with that kind of its success will come the show
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Right. Let's fast -forward. Let's say if we can envision five or six years from now Let's say what if we've planted three or four churches and start and start to what will happen is
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Churches in the area start to take notice to go who those guys are planting churches And what is the easiest thing in the world to do for me to go?
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Let me go on the conference tour and teach everybody how to plant churches
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This is what we do, right This is what happens and this is how we get the celebrity ministerial class who are really a bunch of garbage
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Honestly, it's nonsense It's nonsense. That is not how the kingdom of God grows.
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Now. Look if you want to go to a conference, that's fine All right, but this is not the powerful slow sustained growth that happens through the
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Church of the Living God Do we believe the church is the way that God is fulfilling the Great Commission or is it something else and Jesus is telling us?
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It's the church because what Jesus does is he keeps withdrawing and it's not coincidence that the next thing we're gonna see next week is
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That he appoints the 12 Not the 10 ,000 not the vaguely connected to the whole nation.
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No 12 men 12 men one of whom is going to betray him. All right, so 11
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And it's an amazing thing So we see that the show is gonna happen and everyone and that denies trying to embrace the show
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While acting in such a way is to promote the show with the pretext of saying everybody needs to hear the message
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It's an insidious circle. I'm really thankful a man That's from afar has been a pretty big influence on me has just said like I've just withdrawn myself from the show
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His name's Michael Foster. And so in the short term, I trust what he says, even though I don't know him And the reason for that is because he has self -consciously pulled himself out of the show which will destroy men
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You want to go the path to pride get 10 ,000 people who are telling you you're awesome all the time Very few people can take that right?
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It's it's it's a lot. You can't take it This has been primary motivator of the church day and we have to stop it the other theme which
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I spoke of a little bit is the boat and I think Through the Gospels the boat is a symbol of intimacy and fellowship with Jesus and his disciples
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They do a lot of ministry on the boat and the most important ministry that's going on the Gospels understand this we miss this the most
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Important ministry going on the Gospels is the ministry that Jesus is carrying out with his men Because they're the ones that are gonna turn the world upside down Right.
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They're the ones that he teaches on the road everything that scripture said concerning him
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They're the ones that need to know and so he spends his time with him alone in the quiet in the boat
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No distractions It's an important part of his ministry. And so we see that foreshadowing here and finally to end it today we see that where the work of God is going on the demons take they take attention to it and they are there so the
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Demons are proclaiming the true title of Christ in this passage They're saying you are the
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Son of God Jesus has been calling himself the Son of Man, right? To stick it in the eye of the religious leaders, right?
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But they say you were the Son of God and he earnestly warned them not to tell who he was Why because his time is not there
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But also because of something else and again in the parallel passage the message of Jesus is veiled you missed this
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These are the Pat. These are the things that cause us trouble why is Jesus not wanting the demons to say who he is and the reason why is because the message of you who
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Christ is Is veiled to the Jews? Do you understand this it's veiled to them?
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Okay in the parallel passage He says in Matthew 12 17 through 21 in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled saying
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Behold my servant whom I have chosen my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased
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I will put my spirit upon him and he shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles He will not quarrel nor cry out nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets a battered reed
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He will not break off in a smoldering wick He will not put out until he leads justice to victory and in his name the
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Gentiles will hope what a caustic message for the Jews of the day But what water living water for the hopeless people of Tyre and Sidon Okay, those nasty
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Hittites up on the coast right for those disgusting half -breed Edomites What a message for them
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That Jesus was going to proclaim justice in the streets and no one would hear his voice in the streets where the streets
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That's the synagogue But where are they hearing his voice out in the wilderness by the sea when he's standing on a boat
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And what's he gonna do? He's not gonna cry out and Is he going to destroy his enemies with his mouth at this point?
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No a bruised reed He will not break off. He's going to give the message of the kingdom of God and he's going to be cut off for it
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He will win by dying But ultimately he doesn't win because he dies he wins because he rises again and he wins because he ascends
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And so our call today is to die to ourselves But to also understand that we follow the
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Living God Jesus is toppling the power structure of Israel both by opening faith to the
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Gentiles but also by gently destroying the system through his old sacrifice and Destroying the
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Old Covenant and fulfilling it at the same time. So the old passes away and the new comes into fruition and it's easy for us to miss the message in a world that has told us hey
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My kingdom's not of this world and yet he owns the whole world right our job our job is to not be like the world, but our job is to be in the world and our job is to Fearlessly proclaim this message and do the pattern that Jesus taught us and understand that those who are veiled
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It's veiled from and are perishing. This is utter foolishness that makes them silent and makes them angry But that doesn't stop our task of telling them anyway
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So my charge to you church is that what we have to do is we have to boldly go forth with this message relentlessly