Fulfilling the Law in Grace, Pt. 2 (07/02/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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I think we were in Romans chapter 3 and verse 31.

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Okay, let's read it together. I mean, you read it silently.

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I read it out loud. I got in trouble once saying that. Everybody's kind of like school, you know, quoting the verses.

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It says, Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law.

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Now, there are two other passages that are similar to that verse and I want us to read the three of them and then discuss what this might mean that we establish the law and we do not make the law void through faith.

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The other passage is in Romans chapter 7 and verse 3 and I guess the last point to my study here, you could entitle it,

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How does the law then relate to grace? If it's true that it's been contrasted all morning and last

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Sunday and it has been, it has waxed old and been removed and been replaced with a new wineskin and so forth, then how does it relate to grace?

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And our first verse is there, the one we just read, but now let's look at Romans 7 3. So then, if while her husband liveth she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.

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But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

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Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.

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You see, when Christ died, you were in him, so you died. And the law can have no effect on a dead person since the law is earthly.

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That you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto

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God. What a beautiful picture. It pictures another marriage and more fruit being brought forth unto

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God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

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But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

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And what I want you to focus on is the phrase, that we should serve in newness of spirit.

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You see, to many this word serve is an Old Testament word. But we find here that the whole purpose of us dying in Christ and being risen in Christ is so that we can serve

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God. And serve God in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter.

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So that verse is interesting because it gives the contrast of the oldness of the old system and the new system whereby we serve

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God in spirit. But it shows very clearly that the emphasis is on the fact that we should serve

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God. And the whole reason that we were delivered from the law, which could not work through our flesh in any way in order to please

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God, the whole deliverance was for the purpose of being able to serve in a way that does please

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Him. Now the third passage is in Romans chapter 8, starting with verse 1.

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There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the

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Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

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There we see the contrast between the Old Testament way of things and the New Testament. But then he goes on and says for what the law could not do, there's another contrast, in that it was weak through the flesh.

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Now he gives the purpose for why God made this new way.

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God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled.

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And I want you to think about that phrase, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the

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Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things, they think about the things of the flesh.

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But they that are after the Spirit mind or think about the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity with God.

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For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please

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God. Don't you get the idea that the whole passage is to show us that this is all about pleasing

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God through a better way? And he says, but you are not in the flesh but in the

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Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. And this is a reference to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation.

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Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. It says very plainly, you are not in the flesh, if so be that the

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Spirit of God dwell in you. You have to understand that is a positional statement. It is not necessarily an experiential statement every day, because you can, you can be in the flesh as a saved person.

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You're just not supposed to be. In fact, it's a matter of who you believe. Think about it.

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God said your old man is crucified, and he used the word is, which means it already is crucified.

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That's what God tells us. Satan tells us the old man is still alive and well, and it will have more fun in him anyway.

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So depending on who you believe on any given day, or at any given moment, will determine, once again, your walk.

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It all does come back to faith. It all comes back to do you believe that what God said is true, when he said you are dead and in Christ, and buried in Christ, and now you are risen, and the old man is crucified, and now you're risen and are able to fully serve the

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Lord. And so down in verse 9 it says, but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the

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Spirit of God dwell in you. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.

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God just says it. It's a statement. The body is dead. The old man is dead. Can it sin if it's dead?

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No. Can it serve the law if it's dead? No. It can't do anything, but what's wonderful about it is that there is a new man that is risen, and let me ask you this question, can he serve the law?

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In the Spirit. He can serve the law in the Spirit, but not in the letter, because he's in Christ.

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In fact, when you're in Christ and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you cannot sin. And the opposite of that would be, you must be pleasing

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God. You must be keeping his law at that moment. But if the

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Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his

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Spirit that dwelleth in you. So you have resurrection power in your life. The same power that brought

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Jesus forth from that grave is in our lives moment by moment to cause us to keep the law in Christ.

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By the Spirit, not by the letter. So we have been made free from the law so that we might do three things.

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Number one, establish the law. That's Romans 3 31, the first verse we read.

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Number two, serve God in newness of Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter.

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That's Romans 7 6. And number three, so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.

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Now this phrase where it says, do we make void the law? No, we establish the law, is an interesting word.

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It's the word histemi in Greek, which means to stand or rather to cause to stand.

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So do we make void the law? Do we make the law where it is nothing by faith?

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And he says, I tell you nay, that's not what we do. Rather, we cause the law to stand.

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And secondly, when it says that we are going to serve in newness of Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter in Romans chapter 7 and verse 6, this word serve is a beautiful word.

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It's the Greek word doulo, which means bondservant.

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Now think about that for a moment. Do you remember what the bondservant was in the

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Old Testament? He was a slave to start out with and perhaps something happened and his master said, well,

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I'm going to let you go free. And he loved the master so much that he would prefer to stay with the master the rest of his life.

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And so they would sometimes put an earring in their ear. They would pierce the ear, put an earring in the ear, which said,

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I'm going to stay with you the rest of my life as a bondservant. It's my choice to serve you because my heart is knit to yours.

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And this is the way in which we serve the Lord today. We do not serve according to the oldness of the letter, which is according to the flesh, a set of rules that we're going to keep in our human ability.

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We're not going to serve God that way. We're going to serve God according to the righteousness,

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I'm sorry, according to the newness of the spirit. And when it says serve him in newness of spirit, this word serve is the

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Greek word for a bondservant. We're going to serve him because we want to. We're going to serve him because our hearts are knit with his heart.

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We're going to serve him because it is our nature to serve him in the new man.

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Now the third thing is that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.

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Romans 8 and 4. This word where it says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled, notice the whole purpose of the entire writing that Paul gave us in that passage.

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I mean he did show us the contrast between the law and grace many, many times.

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He showed us that law is taken out of the way like the old wineskin. Now we have the new. And then he tells you the whole purpose for the whole thing.

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The reason that the whole thing was done. The whole purpose for the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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The whole purpose for your baptism into his body. And you know I'm not talking about water baptism. Everybody knows that.

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I want to make sure the children know that. We're talking about a spiritual thing where the Holy Spirit places us in Christ and makes us to be one with him.

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It is because of that it says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled.

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The whole thing comes back to the purpose of it so that the law can be fulfilled.

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Not so that it can be done away with but so that it might be fulfilled in us as we walk in Christ.

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Now this word fulfilled is a beautiful Greek word. Not so pretty to say. I'm not even sure

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I'll attempt it. But you know what it means? It's a fishing term. It's a term fishermen used to use and it meant to cram the net full.

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A net that is just crammed full of fish. And so the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in us when we're walking in the

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Spirit. It should just be filled to the fullness of it in Christ.

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You remember when Jesus made this statement? Turn to Matthew 5 17. Remind yourselves of this little passage.

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He said, think not that I came to destroy the law and the prophets. Now isn't that interesting?

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In the light of everything that Paul said about it's died away, it's waxed old, it's you know it's beggarly elements.

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All the contrast. You have to remember that Paul is speaking by way of comparison and he's comparing being on the earth keeping the earthly laws.

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And you have to remember that the people of Israel, when they went to that mount, God gave them the opportunity to have a personal relationship with him.

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But what did they say? Remember? Oh no, Moses you go do that.

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We'll stay down here and we'll do everything you tell us. We don't want to go up there. We don't want to go around God. And so all of a sudden they were given the law and Jesus says,

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I came not to destroy the law or the prophets. Now this word for destroy means to loosen down and it takes the idea of disintegrate.

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I came not to disintegrate the law or the prophets. And then he goes on and says,

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I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. It's the same word that's used in Romans 8, 4 of us when it says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk after the

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Spirit. In other words, who are in Christ. So Jesus did not come to disintegrate the law and the prophets.

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He came to fulfill the law and the prophets. Now in verse 18, it's interesting because you see the

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English word fulfilled again but it's a different Greek word. It says, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

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It's a different word fulfilled. It's genomehi and it literally means to generate or to become or to come into being.

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And so what Jesus says is you think I came to disintegrate the law and the prophets but he says

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I did not come to destroy but to fulfill, to cram the net full of everything that God's, that's dear to God's heart.

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And he says, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, not one jot, not one dot of the

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I, not one cross of the T will in any way pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

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That means to come into being. Now when you understand that word, it's obvious that in that last phrase,

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Jesus is speaking about the fulfilling of all the prophecies of himself. And when those are, those, not one bit of anything written in the

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Old Testament, the law and the prophets where they spoke of the Messiah, not one of that will go away till I'll fulfill every bit of it, he says.

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And it's kind of interesting as you continue to read there in Matthew chapter 5 and in verse 17, he says those who teach you to break the least of these commandments will be the least of the kingdom of heaven.

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And isn't it interesting in our day and time with all this grace teaching, which the grace of God is one of the most beautiful doctrines you can study in the

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Bible. But as Brother Otis pointed out in Sunday school this morning, it's never right to study just one thing.

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It's never right to focus just on one thing all the time to the exclusion of all the rest of the Bible. And when we do, we get out of balance.

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And so what Jesus says in verse 19, whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments, well what commandments?

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He just got through saying, I came not to destroy the law and the prophets. I did not come to disintegrate the law and the prophets.

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And anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and shall teach men to break them, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, you'll never see the kingdom of heaven. Now what in the world is he saying? Do you realize what they thought he meant when he said the righteousness of the scribes and the

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Pharisees? If you can't do better than that, you'll never see heaven. The common man sitting there saying, I don't have a chance because they're supposed to be perfect.

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I mean, they keep the letter of the law. And Jesus is saying, that's not good enough.

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That's what he's saying. He's saying what they're doing, their system is not good enough.

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And unless you exceed that system, you'll never see heaven. They think that if you kill a man, you've committed murder.

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I'm telling you, if you hate him in your heart, you've killed him. So you have to exceed their law to make it to heaven.

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Well, he just says that down in verse 22. So he has a higher law, a deeper law, a harder law, and the perfect law.

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And he says, if we don't keep that, we'll never see the kingdom of heaven. Now, let's turn to Luke chapter 16 and verse 16.

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I want you to see the parallel passage of that exact same passage. It's just, it's Luke's point of view.

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But it gives wonderful light to the other verse. And you should always remember in interpreting the

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Scripture, one of the greatest rules or laws is use the Bible, or let me put it this way, let the

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Bible interpret the Bible. The little passage in Matthew, if that's the only passage you had, you'd probably leave here today thinking you had to go keep the letter of the law and do it better than the scribes and Pharisees, or you'll never see heaven.

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You might think that if you never read anything else anyway, if you were brand new Christian. But when you find out that the

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Bible sheds more light on that in this parallel passage, look what it says in Luke 16, 16.

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The law and the prophets were until John. Now that word until is an important word.

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Since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man pressed into it.

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Now how do we know it's a parallel passage? Because verse 17 says it's easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail.

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It's the same teaching, it's just we get a little more of the insight into everything that was said that day.

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Jesus himself said the law and the prophets were until John. That means when John the Baptist came on the scene, that era was over.

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The law and the prophets was up until the time period of John the Baptist. And since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man is pressed into it.

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They're not pressed into the old wineskin, they're going into the new one now.

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Now at the same time Jesus says that you must exceed their keeping of the law.

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How can that be? There is only one humanly possible way that that can happen and that is if you're in Christ.

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Because God said, here my son in him I am well pleased. He never said he's well pleased with you or with me or with your children or your spouse or your friends or your mama.

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He said I'm pleased with my son. So when you are baptized into his body, it's like the little black lady said, somebody asked her, how are you so sure this once saved always saved stuff is true?

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And she said, well because when God looks down at me he sees me all dressed up in Jesus.

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And that's the way it is. And it's the only way God could see us in any way that is good.

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But not only are we saved or I say justified in Christ, we are also made able to walk in the

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Spirit. And as we walk in the Spirit we can keep God's laws. And not only can we keep them, we can keep them better than the

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Pharisees did because we understand the depth of it. It goes far beyond outward actions. It has to do with the heart and the mind.

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What goes on in there and how we deal with those thoughts in Christ. That's why the

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Bible says bring every thought and every imagination into the captivity of the obedience of Jesus Christ. It makes it possible to cast them out before you sin.

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Now Luke 24, if you want to go there,

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I believe that this shows the exact time or I believe that it speaks of the exact time when

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Christ fulfilled the law. It starts off in Luke 24 verse 40 and says, and when he had thus spoken he showed them his hands and feet.

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That's a very interesting beginning. And drop down now to verse 44. Just remember now he's showing them his hands, the scars on his hands.

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What does that reference? The cross and all the finished work that Jesus did on our behalf and on God's behalf on the cross.

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You see Jesus not only did the redemptive work for us, he did the propitiative work.

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That's not a good word but he did the, he propitiated God's wrath on the cross. He not just, he did only just do things for us.

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The most important thing is what he accomplished on behalf of the Father. Propitiation came forth which means

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God was satisfied with his death as payment for the sins we've done. So he shows them his hands and his feet.

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Verse 44 says, and he said unto them these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, talking about during his earthly ministry, that all things must be fulfilled.

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And as he spoke with them he was speaking of a very short view of the future where he would be taken to the cross and be in the grave for three days and then rise again.

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And he says, I told you back in those days how all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets.

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That's exactly what Jesus meant when he said I didn't come to disintegrate the law and the prophets, I came to fulfill them.

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And now he's reminding them this is how I did it. I told you I was going to do it. I told you all things must be fulfilled that Moses and the prophets spoke of me and in the

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Psalms concerning me. And that's a reference to his work on the cross.

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Verse 45 says, then he opened their understanding into the first time those Jews saw it. They did not see it while they were walking with him on the earth.

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During his earthly ministry he never once spoke in any way that would cause them to believe that the old wineskin was no longer going to be what the wine was put in.

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They didn't understand that but all of a sudden he opened their understanding and that they might understand the scriptures.

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And he said unto them, thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name.

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That's the gospel of the kingdom among all nations beginning at Jerusalem and ye are witnesses of these things.

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So now we see that the law and the prophet was until John the Baptist. John started preaching repentance.

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It's hard to say repentance and preach without saying preach. But Jesus went on and preached the kingdom.

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Now verse 49 says this, and behold I send the promise of my father upon you but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high.

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This is how the promise of the seed of Abraham will be fulfilled in all those who believe is by the power of the

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Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of promise, the one who will be the law in our hearts.

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Cause the law to remain in our hearts. And then he goes on and it says he led them out as far as Bethany, lifted up his hands and blessed them.

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And it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were content.

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That's evidence of their having been, having heard the message.

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And finally their eyes were opened to it and were continually in the temple praising and blessing

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God. Amen. And thus ends the book of Luke. So not one jot or one tittle of the law will fall.

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Well how can that be? Because in Christ is the fulfillment of the law.

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Let me give you one verse and we'll end with this this afternoon. But it sums up the whole thing of what we call the law of Christ as opposed to the laws of Moses.

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1st John chapter 3 verse 22. I got so much more

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I'm just gonna have to make this available to you. I'm on page 15.

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I got 24 pages. So all I'm gonna do is just leave you with the summation of the key elements of the workings of how it is that we keep the law of Christ.

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The law of Christ. 1st John 3 22. And whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

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Now what commandments would you say that a first century

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Christian would have? What part I mean what do they have in the way of a

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Bible? Anybody venture a guess? That's right.

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They had the Old Testament and maybe a letter from Paul. You know the Church of Rome may have had one letter.

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Church at Ephesus may have had one letter and so forth. So primarily they're looking at the

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Old Testament Scriptures. Now the Bible tells us they were written for those of us who are in the end days that we might look at the types and examples and learn the spiritual truths that we're supposed to be living.

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So they had the same thing before even before they had the New Testament. And so here they found themselves keeping his commandments.

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Now does that say that they disintegrated the commandments? You see the moral law of God has never, we've never been exempted from that.

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Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet. Have no other idols, no other gods.

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You think are we exempt from those things? We are not exempt from those. Jesus did not destroy those.

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He made it to be where they could be fulfilled in us. And he says whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and we do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

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And this is his commandment that we should believe on the name of the

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Son, Jesus Christ. So the first aspect we see of the law of Christ is faith.

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Secondly, and love one another as he gave his commandment. The second aspect of the law of Christ is the love of God, the agape love that God places in the heart of a genuine believer as he gave his commandment.

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And verse 24 says and he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby we know that he abideth in us by the

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Spirit which he hath given us. And the third element is the holy conscience that we have because of the indwelling

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Holy Spirit. Now that's that's not all

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I have for you but it's all I'm going to give you because the fried chicken is hitting the spot. I can tell, he's even doing it for me and I'm standing up.

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But let me just give you this thought. I don't think, I've thought about this a lot in the last few weeks.

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What does it mean when the Bible says that God placed his law in our hearts during this particular dispensation?

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What's interesting about it is most of the verses that deal with that are literally talking about the millennial period and the

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Jews. But it's almost the same parenthetical idea that the church was.

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The Old Testament Jew couldn't see the church in here. He could see the first advent, the second advent, but they were together like one thing.

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They didn't they didn't see the parentheses in between which is where we are now. And so that same promise is to the person who's baptized into the body of Christ during this time although the primary idea of it is to the

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Jew during the millennial period. But we gain the benefit of it because we're in Christ and he was the seed of Abraham.

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Are you with me? We covered all this already. So here's my question. What do you think the Bible means when it says

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God places his law in our hearts? Do you think that it's like just you get saved and then poof you know everything that pleases

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God? I don't think it's that way. I think you know the Bible says very clearly that we ought to study to show ourselves approved unto

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God. And you remember it's either 1st Timothy 316 or 2nd Timothy 316. One of them talks about the

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Father and the Holy Spirit. The other one talks about the fact that God has given us the

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Bible and that it's inspired. It is God breathed so that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished, thoroughly equipped to do

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God's work and to please God. Now that's a rough paraphrase of the verse. It's probably on about page 23 and I'm not getting to it today.

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But you know isn't it interesting that God himself says that this Bible, now remember when that verse was written they did not have a

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New Testament yet. They had the Old Testament and it says all scripture.

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I believe that that would reference the New Testament coming as well but to that person who read it when that was written it meant the

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Old Testament scriptures that they had. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

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So don't you get the idea that the way that the Lord places that law in your heart is for you to study?

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He's given you the written word but the thing that we have that the Old Testament Saint did not have is we have the author living in our hearts inside of us.

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I'm talking about in 1st John it says you hath not any need that any man teach you but the anointing you have the anointing of the

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Holy Spirit who can teach you all things. A human teacher if he's right with God may help you go a little faster but he won't help you learn much more because the

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Holy Spirit is really the teacher. In fact if you learn anything under anybody's teaching it's because the Holy Spirit taught it to you.

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And so I believe that the method God uses to place his law in our hearts is as we study the

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Old Testament I mean there you can go into the New Testament read about the fruits of the

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Spirit you can read about the fruits of the flesh and in that portion on the fruits of the flesh probably it gives general generalities of pretty much every law

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God gave. But if you want to see the details and the specific things that God likes and God doesn't like you got to go read the book of Leviticus and some other places in the

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Old Testament and you'll see detail. You know I don't like you doing this. Sometimes he'll tell you why.

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Sometimes he doesn't. He just says don't do it. And so as we study the

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Scriptures both Old Testament and New and we study in the Holy Spirit God then as we read the law and it goes in our hearts the

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Holy Spirit kind of cements it in there. And so that when you go out in life and you're confronted with a circumstance or a person or a situation the

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Holy Spirit can bring that law that principle that precept right into your mind and as you're walking filled with the

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Holy Spirit in Christ you will keep the law perfectly. In fact it's impossible for you to sin in that state.

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So the only time that we can mess up is when we believe the devil's lie. He says oh that old man is alive go ahead and go with him.

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And there are an awful lot of churches around to try to make up a bunch of rules for us to live by because that's easier in their view to live by the flesh than it is to make the decision to be one with the

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Holy Spirit and to walk in Christ moment by moment. Isn't that sad? You'd rather keep a bunch of rules than to have a relationship.

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A wonderful relationship that Jesus wants with us. But that's the whole answer.

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So the balance of this whole discussion is not that anything that Jesus did disintegrates the law and the prophets.

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What he did was because of his death, his burial, and his resurrection, and his placement of us in his body by baptism of the

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Holy Spirit he's made it possible for us to fulfill the law. For us to really walk like probably the children of Israel would have if they had chosen a personal relationship rather than no we don't just send

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Moses up there we'll take the law. It's a relationship and you think about the feasts and all the things that we've discussed and as the times of the year come up and the fall feast we'll talk about what they picture.

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Why would it be of any benefit for anyone in this room to keep the feast?

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And you can't really keep all the feasts because some of it entails going and slaying hundreds and hundreds of animals at the temple and there is no temple.

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So I'm not talking about keeping the feast according to the letter of the law. I'm talking about what if you could do parts of it where it pictured

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Jesus Christ in intimate little colors and details and aspects of what he's done for you in such a way that you would never have seen if you hadn't done that.

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Would that be wrong? Clearly not. The Bible says if a man wants to keep a holiday let him do it unto the

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Lord. If a man wants not to do it let him do it unto the Lord. If he wants to keep a

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Sabbath or the Sabbath let him do it unto the Lord. If he wants not to keep the Sabbath let him do it unto the

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Lord because you're in Christ. You've been given that conscience that the

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Holy Spirit in you causes. You have all the benefits of being filled and indwelt by the

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Holy Spirit and of the great teacher in your hearts. So there shouldn't be a problem with it.

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I think I may have created some problem and certainly didn't mean to. We kept the

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Passover with Russ and Brenda. It was, well

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I think you could ask my wife or any of my children, but I know you can ask me. It was a life -changing experience.

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And I preached a sermon on it and tried to get across what it did for me.

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But what's interesting when you're in leadership sometimes people look at you and say, well if he does that, does that mean we have to do that?

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That's not what it means. And probably had I known it would have that effect I might not have done it.

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But I'm glad that I did because I saw what

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Jesus did for me on that cross very, very vividly that day. And I want to thank you guys for inviting us into that very personal family time of yours.

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But I'll tell you this, as you study these beautiful feasts and any other thing you find in the Old Testament, it's a shadow of Jesus.

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The thing is, you can't see Jesus right now, only by faith, but you can't see him.

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And that's why he gave his people some remembrances. Did you know that within just maybe seven or eight years, who knows, we might very well be to that time in the millennial period?

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Do you know what they're going to be doing during that time? They're going to be doing the feasts. They're even going to be doing some sacrifices and offerings.

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But not to get saved, they're going to be doing it as a memorial, picturing everything that Christ accomplished on that cross.

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And not only that, but everything he accomplishes when he comes back, everything that he accomplished at his session at the right hand of the

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Father right now as our intercessor, and everything he will accomplish as the lawgiver and as the king of kings on the face of this earth for a thousand years, that's what it pictures.

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So I leave it up to the men in the church to decide what they do with their families, but it certainly would help the children to go through those types and those pictures and see what those feasts mean.

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And the whole thing that started it was I went to this Passover with Russ, and I started studying about Easter and some of the pagan things that we, that the

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Roman Catholics have tried to put together with true faith. It just made me think a little bit.

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Made me think, well, if God didn't like that mixture in the Old Testament, has he changed? And it just occurred to me that perhaps if I could find biblical feasts that God gave for his children that I could do with my children instead of these pagan

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Easter bunny hunts and stuff like, no, you don't hunt the bunny, the eggs. That not only it might be that God likes that better, but my children might learn more about God and I might learn more about my

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Savior as well. That's all I ever meant by any of this, and I hope that you know that by now. I hope everything's cool with everybody.

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It's not to bring anybody under the law, but on the other hand, it's not to disintegrate the law and the prophets either so that we might fulfill the law as we walk in Christ.

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All that's given in the Old Testament has given as a picture to us to see our

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Savior until the day we can see him clearly. It's all beautiful. It's all glorious.

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Anytime you can see the face of Jesus, you're better off than before you saw it. So take every advantage that you have to go in and get all the colors and details that God gives us in the

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Old Testament. So long as you understand you're not doing it to get saved and you're not doing it to get closer to God because you can't get closer than being seated in Christ at the right hand of the

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Father. Let's stand and have prayer together. Father, we thank you so much for the position that we have in Christ.

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The Old Testament saints looked into these things with curiosity and would have given anything to be able to look at the things as clearly as we can today and thank you that you've let us live in this day in this time when we have this beautiful hindsight of being able to look back to the cross and beyond the cross into the

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Old Testament times at all of the beautiful pictures of the finished work of Christ that the

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Jewish people looked at day in and day out through their life in this world. We thank you so much for the fact that there are some

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Jewish believers today, some that have come to Jesus Christ. And Father, we yearn for the day when more

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Jewish people will come to the Lord Jesus Christ and we know that you tell us in the very end times that many, many, many thousands upon thousands will come to know the

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Lord Jesus Christ and even in one day when your son comes back, those who are left alive on this earth, every

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Jew will see him and believe. What a glorious thing, what a glorious day that will be.

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We thank you, Father, that you've shared the beautiful light with the

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Gentiles that we might be saved. We thank you so much for Jesus's ministry in that respect.

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We thank you for how you worked in the life of the Apostle Paul, who was our Apostle, and how awesome his teachings are for us.

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We thank you for all these things. We ask you to be the best witnesses. Help us to be the best witnesses we can be to the

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Jew and the Gentile. Give us great wisdom as we speak the things of Christ in our day -to -day walk and we ask it in Jesus' name.