Sunday Night, May 24, 2020, AM

I pray that you would help us tonight as we consider the truths of your word, that you would help clarify our understanding of your holy scriptures, that we would know you and know Christ all the more.

And I pray that you would help us to truly worship you tonight, and I pray that you would work your will amongst our youth and our children, help them to follow steadily after you. Pray these things for Christ's sake.

Amen. Well, getting back started on a Sunday night, we don't have all of our normal procedures in place, but I don't know when we'll start getting music back and fellowship time and scripture readings and all of that.

But for now, to get us going, I'm going to read a psalm. And then after that, since this is the fourth Sunday evening in the month, our custom is to do Q &A. I've got a few questions already turned in, but if you all came with one as well, we can discuss that.

So if you will turn to Psalm chapter 2 or Psalm 2, we'll read that together and give praise to the Lord for Christ, our King. Psalm 2, why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs, Lord scoffs at them, then he will speak to them in his anger and terrify them in his fury saying, but as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.

I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you, ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. Now, therefore, O King, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

Do homage to the son that he not become angry and you perish in the way for his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him. All right. So do we have any questions tonight that we can spend some time discussing from the word of God?

Maybe brave enough. Yes, David. OK, so the question is about the Sabbath, the Sabbath, Jesus says the Sabbath was that man was not made for the Sabbath as if our whole existence is about keeping Sabbath, but that the Sabbath was made for man.

It was something that God instituted, something that God created, and it was to be a blessing for man. Now, in light of that, David's question is, if it really is a gift for man, then why was it as part of the law, why was there the death penalty attached to breaking the Sabbath?

It doesn't seem, you know, something that follow this or die doesn't seem like a gift to man. So great question. As we think about what is the law in and of itself, obviously, the law would be considered something that time and again in the scriptures is called a blessing, called a gift in general from God to man.

And yet, of course, with God's law, there'll be all sorts of judicial penalties for breaking God's law. So in a sense, the question about the Sabbath can be extrapolated to all the Ten Commandments, many of which did indeed have the death penalty attached.

So in one sense, we know where the Sabbath ends up is fulfilled in Christ and that we Sabbath insofar as we rest in Christ as he is prescribed. And for many people, that means Sunday, the first day of the week, that is the Christian Sabbath.

And that's when we Sabbath, that's when we rest in those special ways on Sunday. And then for others, Sabbath is what we do together in Christ, worshiping and resting in him and being nourished by the word of God.

And because the Lord rose on the first day of the week and the church decides to meet, then that's the best time to do Sabbath. But it's not restricted to one day of the week. So there is a variance of conviction in that regards.

But why is the Sabbath a blessing for man and yet it carries the death penalty? Well, we know that God instituted the Sabbath on the seventh day. God rested and he looks at his good creation, his very good creation, and he blesses the seventh day, sets it apart, and it becomes a pattern for Adam and Eve and all humanity to follow.

And the Ten Commandments, the fourth commandment in listed in Exodus, I remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, says because God rested on the seventh day. And then in Deuteronomy chapter five, where you have the Ten Commandments given again, it says to keep Sabbath because God delivered you up out of Egypt.

So you should rest on the seventh day, remembering that you were brought up out of Egypt and redeemed, that you were slaves, but then you were brought up out. Remember that how you labored and you worked and you slaved away, but then God brought you out into the wilderness for a rest.

And so you observe Sabbath, remembering God's deliverance of you up out of Egypt. And then at the same time, the creation pattern, work six days, rest the seventh day. The death penalty associated with it should be a reminder that to reject Sabbath rest is deadly.

When, in addition to the death penalty for breaking the Sabbath, there was also judgment of God upon the land, if the children of Israel did not let their land, their fields rest every seven years and not plant anything until the ground and let it rest every seven years, God said, you're going to lose the land.

So if you don't observe this rest, if you don't follow through on the Sabbath laws every seventh year, you're going to lose out on the whole land. If you break the Sabbath and the Sabbath day throughout the week, once every week, well, then there's a death penalty for that.

So what is God saying through that? Well, he's saying to reject the rest that I give you, to reject the Sabbath that I offer to you, which is for you, it's good for you, to reject that means to embrace death.

Now, that's the gospel message in shadow, right? The substance is Christ who comes and he says, come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The writer of Hebrews says, you know, that there's a greater Joshua who brings us into his rest.

But what if you reject that rest? What if you reject the rest that God offers? Well, what's the result? What if you reject Sabbath as it is fulfilled in Christ? Well, it's death, is it not? It's eternal death.

To reject the gift of rest that God gives, the rest that is culminated in Christ, to reject that Sabbath that God offers is, well, what was left is eternal death. And in fact, a dispossession of the inheritance, which is Christ, right?

So Christ gets all the land, he's the heir of all creation. So to reject the rest as it is offered to us is also to be dispossessed of an inheritance in the new creation. So the pattern set in the Old Testament is embrace this rest, affirm this rest, participate in this pattern of rest.

You know, once every week, every seven years, and there were others too. And to reject it means death or dispossession of your inheritance. Well, as I see it, that in shadow is the gospel. That's to direct our attention ultimately to Christ.

So that's probably, I mean, I would answer it in terms of, but there may be a nuance I'm missing. What's your thought? Death for the nation. So David's point there is to refuse to honor. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

That would mean essentially idolatry as rather than fearing God and resting in him and to not try to always be getting ahead and providing. You know, I will provide for myself on my own strength. Right.

But I'm going to rest one day out of seven. And that honors the Lord and says, I trust in you. You will provide for it because you are the creator and provider of all things. Right. That's what resting on the Sabbath meant.

Also, that Sabbath year where you don't do anything with your land for a whole year. And then the year of Jubilee, the two years, the 49th year and the 50th year. So there's a lot of fearing God and trusting him in those moments.

And to reject those things would indeed be inviting in idolatry because you're going to be trusting in other things rather than God. So that means death for the culture. It means, you know, it means death that way too.

So. Very good. OK. Anything else? Yes, Brother Ray. Yes, sir. Now on the Sabbath day to gather wood after Moses had clearly stated, none of y 'all go work on the Sabbath. Whereas on in this incident where the man went out to gather wood on the Sabbath day, he was knowingly, actively rebelling against the clear word of the Lord that had been delivered to him.

This is not the same thing as unintentionally, you know. Oh, yeah, something like that. That's what the Pharisees in Matthew 12 were. They were really going after everybody on all of the incidentals and really missing the point of what the Sabbath was about.

I had a few questions come in. One of them was about the angel of the Lord in the plagues, the 10th plague. The question was, why did why did God not instantaneously take the lives of all the firstborn in Egypt?

Why did he make it so that the angel of death would pass over? Why did he announce it beforehand? Why did this take some time before it actually occurred? Why didn't he simply just instantaneously affect the judgment?

And as we consider the last plague, the Passover, I believe that the passages there in Exodus 11 and 12 indicate that the reason why God set it up that way was to give time for instruction to be given to the Israelites and to any Egyptians who were willing to believe, who did believe the message, so that they would go ahead and go through with the Passover meal, sacrifice those lambs, and then put the blood upon the doorposts so they would have a great sign by which to recognize the Lord's mercy in providing a substitutionary atonement.

And so that the delay in what God did was to teach his people about his holiness and their need for a sacrifice so that they would be covered over by the blood of another. And again, this is laying some very important foundations for the coming Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

And indeed, the Gospel of John, the Apostle John, makes very, very clear connections between Jesus Christ on the cross and the Passover lamb. Even quoting from Numbers, I believe Numbers chapter 11, I could be wrong, but I think Numbers 11, about not a bone of the hymn should be broken, says, this was to fulfill, they didn't break the legs of Jesus on the cross.

And then John says, this was to fulfill, not a bone of hymn will be broken. But you go look at the passage that John quotes, and it says, not a bone of it shall be broken, talking about the Passover lamb.

And so it was important for the Jews to have that time to process, this is what God will do, but here's what we are called to do, and that was building the faith of God's people in the coming one. Another question that came up was in John chapter 8, there's a story where, at the beginning of the chapter, where there was a woman who was caught in adultery, and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, brought her before Christ to see what he would say.

What he'd say, according to the law of Moses, now everybody stone her, and if he did that, he would be breaking the civil law of the land, wherein the Romans said the Jews did not have the right to execute their own, they had to leave that to the Romans.

So if Jesus said, okay, we have to stone her, then he'd be in trouble with the civil authorities. Or, if he said, oh, we better not, we better not stone her, then he would be in violation of Mosaic law, right?

And so now we've got him, right? No matter which way he answers, we've got him, he'll be discredited amongst the people now. And they were always trying to come up with one of those impossible to answer questions or situations.

And, of course, Jesus says to her accusers, he who is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her, and in that, he was putting the full weight of the law upon them all, all right? If you really want to enforce the death penalty, those of you who would not be guilty of something requiring the death penalty, you get to be on the execution squad.

But apparently, everybody was on death row, because he stooped down to write something on the ground. We don't know what he wrote. Did he write the Ten Commandments? Was he writing what he knew about what was in their hearts, and so on and so forth?

But apparently, everybody there was on death row, and there was no qualified execution or present. And so, that being the case, they all left, and Jesus says, are your accusers, did they not condemn you?

No, neither do I condemn you. Go, and he says, from now on, sin no more. So he says, I don't condemn you. Why that? What does he mean? He's not condoning her sin. Sin is sin. But Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

The Lamb of God came to save the world. Jesus said in another place in John that he did not come into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And of course, when Christ returns, he will return as judge, but he came first as savior.

And so, he says to this woman, basically, he's forgiving her. He's forgiving her of her sins as he forgave other sinners. He says, go and sin no more. And the kingdom of heaven is for such as these. Now, later on, interestingly, after he says, I don't condemn you, which is a word, which is meaning judge against.

So, that's a compound word meaning to judge against someone, to make a ruling against someone, to condemn someone. Later on, in verse 26, he's speaking to these religious leaders, and he says, I have many things to speak and judge concerning you.

But he who sent me is true, and the things which I heard from him, these I speak to the world. And so, he's saying that there is something that he has to say that would judge concerning them. Now, that's, what's, so the question was, what's the difference between condemning and judging?

Okay. Well, in this sense, Jesus is saying, I am not condemning you as I could, but I'm not going to. And then later on, he says, there are some things that I do have to say to you. And what he means by this, by judging them, things that say judge concerning you, he's saying, I have some things to say that will expose the, the worth or the value of what you're doing and what you're believing.

So, in that sense, he's not changing his mind in mid-thought, where before he says, you know, I'm not judging anyone, but like he did in verse 16. But now he's saying, well, now I am judging. He's not really changing his mind about that, but he's saying, I didn't come to sit in judgment at this time.

But I do have some things to say about what you're believing, the worth of it or the worthlessness of it, the truth of it or the falsehood of it. And that's the way that we talked about today. There's, to judge in one way, you could, you could condemn somebody and sentence them.

Okay. But that's not our role. That would be Christ's role. Or you can say, according to God's standard, here's the truth or the falsehood of this, or here's the rightness or wrongness of this, according to God's standard.

And that's the way he's using that word there. And I think, yeah, so the last question that I had was about, there was a quote by someone named Harold, and I can't quite pronounce the last name. Because he's incredibly Lutheran, and he's from an area in the country where the names are, you know, the names of offensive linemen, I can't really pronounce it well.

But in any case, Harold said something along these lines. He said, many preachers are content to, many preachers are content to preach about Christ rather than to preach Christ. And then the question was, what's the difference?

What does that mean? Well, I don't really know. Harold, when I say he's incredibly Lutheran, I mean that because I have one of his books, and I read through it. And because of his view on communion and baptism and on the sacraments, there is a kind of blending of God and the elements that I think I don't agree with in terms of, I don't believe that, for instance, Lutheran pastors really are providing absolution of sin through sacraments.

I think, I don't believe that, you know, I think there's a priesthood of the believers, and I think that we have our forgiveness in Christ as our high priest, and I don't believe that there's any other mediators between Christ and me.

And he probably would agree, but the language that he uses is not really mystical as much as it is very, very sacramental. And so, as I think about what Harold may mean by that, he'd be very keen on making sure that we recognize that when we're sharing the truth about Jesus from the Word of God, that our goal really is for the person that we're talking to to know Christ himself, to know Christ personally.

And that, in fact, this is available by God's grace through the scriptures, that we would know who Christ really is and to be in personal relationship with him, and that we would have that understanding of who Christ is through the Word and by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

In the best version of what Harold may have said, I think that's what I would go with, rather than just giving details about who Jesus is, just about, you know, the information and so on and so forth.

So, I hope that answers that person's question as well. Interesting phenomenon just occurred. The Communist Chinese Party has not had an opportunity to meet, you know, get legislation rolling because of the viruses and so on and so forth.

But apparently on the agenda right now is a tightening of the noose around the Christian churches in China. And something happened on the first day that they began to meet. A massive storm descended over downtown Beijing and basically turned everything black.

And videos are coming out of China about all of this. So, you have a newspaper reporting that this happened, and there's video about, you know, just a massive blackness, you know, and people are taking video like, ah, what's going on?

You know, lightning flashes and so on and so forth. And no conclusion was made in the newspaper about why this may be. But believers elsewhere praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ are saying, hmm.

But so someone emailed me a story about that, and I thought that was really interesting. At the very least, isn't it true that Romans 1 .20, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

And so God reveals himself. He reveals that, indeed, he is creator and vastly, infinitely powerful. And we're not. He made us, and we're accountable to him. And something as perhaps simple as an incredibly powerful thunderstorm reminds a lot of people about that.

So it's like, hmm, we have someone we're accountable to in these matters. Okay, well, we're coming up against the end of our time. So I'm going to go ahead and pray for us, and we'll close. And then after that, we'll have a truth group.

All right, Father, I thank you so much for the time you have given us tonight. I pray that it's been a blessing to those who have come and to those who have tuned in. Please help us to always be wise bereavens, to be examining the scriptures daily, to see if the things we are hearing are indeed so.

And I pray that you would give us wisdom in Christ. We pray these things for his sake. Amen. All right, we're dismissed.