Semper Virgo Simply Isn't

Let us pray. Blessed Lord, You've caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning.

Grant that we may so hear them, mark, read, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of Your holy

Word we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen. Were there any questions that came up in your mind from the sermon?

You try to be good all the time and it's worthless. That's kind of the wrong conclusion, by the way. So, yeah, yeah.

Well, that's kind of the idea. You'll note that sanctification is described as bearing the fruit of the

Spirit. It's not the fruit of you, it's the fruit of the Spirit. And so the fear of God, the recognition that none is good, none is righteous except for God, and that we are in need of His mercy, forgiveness, grace, and we hold fast to the confidence that we have in the forgiveness of our sins, that from that then, that living faith, then will flow good works for a neighbor.

Not so that you can get little stars on your star chart or little brownie points from God. Instead, it's for the neighbor's sake.

And then God, then, you, bearing fruit and keeping with the

Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, doing your good works for your neighbor's sake. You're not focused on you, you're focused on them.

And at the end of it all, you'll stand before Christ and He'll say, well done. Yeah, so the modern translations use hell.

And I do find that to be confusing. I think if we want to be really, really, really super deaccurate, we would need to use the

Hebrew word sheol. He descended into sheol is probably a better way of putting it.

Some translations will say He descended to the dead, which still is a wee bit confusing. And so we use, in our modern translations,

Hades or hell, which technically could be kind of the same thing. But the problem is that when you use the word hell, sometimes people will think of, like, the end, the very end, you know, the lake of fire.

And that's not what that's referring to. So He descended into sheol would be the far more accurate way of putting it.

So, yes. Yeah.

Yes. All right.

So you'll note, then, when you read the Book of Concord, the Book of Concord does not have as a doctrine or article of faith that we believe in the perpetual virginity of Christ.

Or of Mary, sorry. Perpetual virginity of Mary. I will say this, that historically, that's been the majority position within Christianity.

I do not hold to it. Biblically, I don't think it can be defended. And it is not a doctrine that we are required to believe.

I will say this. I know some Lutherans who still hold on to it. And I know a whole bunch of Lutherans who don't.

And when you ask the Lutherans who do hang on to it, you know, how are you justifying this?

Because nowhere in Scripture are we told to believe this as a doctrine. I think it's putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable completely.

Because, you know, Mary was a woman in need of a Savior, just like the rest of us.

They'll basically say, well, yeah, we recognize that this is a majority position within the ancient church.

The ancient church, many people believed it. And it's very notable. Even Calvin of the

Reformed church, he held to it. And so, you know, I find it to be an interesting artifact.

Personally, I believe that haos in Matthew, that it says that Joseph did not have relations with his wife, haos, until that,

I'm sorry, that pretty much clinches it for me. People on the other end will argue, well, if Jesus truly had actual brothers, other brothers from Joseph, then why did he put

Mary in charge or Mary under the charge of the Apostle John at the cross? That's one of the primary arguments that they will give.

And the answer is the text doesn't say. You know, this was Jesus' prerogative as the firstborn that he could have done that anyway.

Then I didn't get it right. He speaks of brothers of whom he loved.

Well, yeah, brothers of whom he loved.

Yeah, it talks in Scripture about Jesus as a Delphoi, brothers, plural.

And the people who believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary always will say, well, that's a bigger term.

It could also mean cousins and kin and things like that. It doesn't have to mean actual brothers.

And so what's fascinating to me is that the people who hold to it, when you point out

Matthew or you point out the fact that Jesus has brothers, they will always give a different narrative and say, well, it could mean this.

And here's my argument. If I'm to believe that Mary remained a virgin perpetually because you're in your way of thinking that the

Holy Spirit used Mary, Mary's womb as the vessel to bring Christ into the world.

And how could she possibly then desecrate that vessel through marital relations with her husband?

Now, that's literally how they talk. This is one of their points. Exactly. And so what they're doing is they're basically saying that this is an appropriate thing.

But here's the thing. That's all pious talk. If I'm supposed to believe it, how come no biblical text actually says that?

There is not a single biblical text that says that Mary's sacred womb was not desecrated by marital relations with her husband.

There's no text that says that, but that's their doctrine. And that just... You smell that right there?

Yeah, that smells like Rome to me. Smells like Rome.

Yeah. And so here's the other end of it then. When you consider then the other side of this, and that is that, wait a second,

Mary willingly entered the office of wife. She willingly entered that office.

And God made her a wife. And scripture is clear that when it comes to marital relations, that's to be the norm in your relationship with your spouse, and that you should only cease having normal marital relations if there's some kind of a problem in your marriage and you need to kind of not do that in order to kind of pray and seek

God's help for a problem, but then come back quickly is how Corinthians puts it, so that the devil wouldn't have a foothold.

So now I have to believe, I believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, that Joseph literally was perfectly fine and was not tempted by the devil regarding the fact that he had to remain in a, and I'll use the phrase, a sexless marriage.

But women who withhold sex from their husbands, except for on the rare occasion when they agreed to do that mutually, are not held up in scripture as doing a good thing.

That's actually held up in scripture as something that causes people to sin and opens a door for the devil.

Right, yeah.

I mean, Joseph could have and should have filed for an annulment using Catholic dogma because they hadn't actually consummated the marriage.

Yeah. In fact, if you'll note, one of the reasons why he wanted to put her away quietly is because he thought that she had totally cheated on him.

And he wanted her to be able to be with the one that she loved.

But for him, that actually was an issue. So here's the idea, is that as pious as the perpetual virginity of Mary sounds,

I'm not required to believe it because no text teaches it. In fact, the whole concept runs against the grain of the fact that marriage is an institution set up by God and that the expectation within marriage is that the marriage bed is kept holy and that you don't withhold your body from your spouse because according to scripture, in the marriage covenant, your body isn't your own.

It belongs to your spouse. So I think the whole thing is really cockeyed.

And as pious sounding as it is, if I were required to believe it, a biblical text would teach it.

And it doesn't. Yeah.

And Jesus, we know, he had brothers. They are called brothers. Yeah. And so it's also, this is an undeniable fact of history that some of the biggest lights of the church fathers, they all believed in it.

They all believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Luther believed in it. Zwingli believed in it.

Calvin believed in it. So this is one of those things that I think has a good, strong tradition, but I can't see any reason why biblically

I must believe it at all. Not one reason. So.

And it kind of annoys me. Hopefully that came through in my.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think it just opens up the door to Mariology.

You know, a bad Mariology. And it's just not what we're supposed to do. All right.

We've been working our way through the book of Exodus. Last week we got through Exodus 32 and got into 33 by way of summary, let me remind you that the children of Israel had sinned greatly against God while Moses was up on Mount Sinai and God was giving

Moses the instructions on how to build the tabernacle, to what artifacts were to be created for the use in the tabernacle, giving him the dimensions and the specs and the building materials from the gold to the acacia wood to even the patented fragrance used for incense and anointing oil that while he was up there talking with God, the people of Israel said, we don't know what happened to Moses.

And so they went to Aaron and said, make for us gods. And a little bit of a note here, I didn't highlight this last week, but worth noting that when they decided to have their little festival with this golden calf, that it's fascinating that the day itself, the day of worship, it's funny that they literally were worshiping the

Lord. And let me explain to you what I mean by that. Let's see here.

Here we go. I'll back up into verse, halfway through verse one up, make us gods who shall go before us.

As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him.

So Aaron said, take off your rings of gold that are in your ears of your wives and your sons and daughters.

All the people took off their rings of gold that were on their ears, brought them to Aaron. He received the gold, hand -fashioned it with a graving tool, made a golden calf, and they said, these are your gods,

O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation.

And note what the proclamation says. Tomorrow shall be a feast to, and then note the word,

LORD, all caps, tomorrow will be a feast to Yahweh. So in the creation of the golden calf, in their day of worship, again, think

Burning Man here, because things went really kind of sideways. In their day of worship, they literally said that this was a feast to Yahweh.

And yet they were worshipping the Lord through a golden calf, which the Lord does not accept.

And then we noted last week that this sin literally caused the

Lord to say very difficult words for the people of Israel, that He was not going to go with them to the land of promise, to the promised land, that they were pretty much on their own.

He was going to send an angel. And Moses is trying desperately to kind of in an intercessory kind of way figure out, okay,

I know I have God's favor, and he doesn't know how or why yet.

His theology hasn't properly matured to that point where he can understand it.

And so he's trying to figure out, see if he can get from God, get God to reveal how he has earned or received

God's favor. And once he can figure that out, he can have the children of Israel do likewise so that they can earn

God's favor and things would be restored. The breach would be filled, if you would, in the relationship.

And so Moses' first attempt, he basically said, I know I found favor in your eyes. If you won't go with us and you won't forgive these people, then blot my name out of the book.

And God says, I'm not going to blot your name out, but anyone who sins against me, I'll blot his name out.

Swing and a miss. Strike one. So then attempt number two,

Moses basically was looking for commandments that they could keep. Show me your ways so I can teach it to the people of Israel so that they can find favor in your sight.

And God doesn't give him a list of commandments by which they can reestablish their relationship.

So by way of summary, we'll read again Exodus 32, starting at verse 30, and you kind of see swing one and the miss and then we'll keep working.

So the next day, Moses said to the people, You've sinned a great sin. I will go up to Yahweh. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

Moses returned to Yahweh and said, Last, as people have sinned a great sin, they have made for themselves gods of gold.

But now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you've written.

But Yahweh said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. Now go, lead the people to the place to which

I've spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.

So then the Lord sent a plague on the people because they made a calf, the one that Aaron made.

You'll note that Scripture doesn't pick up and move forward Aaron's explanation about how poof it magically appeared in the fire.

You know, he gets the blame and properly so. So Yahweh said to Moses, chapter 33,

Go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt to the land of which

I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, To your offspring I will give it. I'll send an angel before you.

I'll drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff -necked people.

And when the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. For Yahweh had said to Moses, Say to the people of Israel, You are a stiff -necked people.

If for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. Which, by the way, is what happens when sinners are in the presence of a holy

God. You have to think of it that way. So now take off your ornaments that I may know what to do with you.

Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward. And now Moses used to take the tent.

All right, we've read all of that. I'm going to fast forward to verse 12 so we can kind of pick up the narrative.

Moses said to Yahweh, See you say to me, Bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.

Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.

So Moses knows he's got favor in God's sight, but he doesn't know why. So therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways that I may know in order to find favor in your sight.

Consider too that this nation is your people. So he's looking for a list of things to do so the people of Israel can have favor again with God.

And God said, Well, my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

It's not what Moses is looking for. He's looking for God to go with y 'all. So he said to him,

If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight,

I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?

So Yahweh said to Moses, This very thing that you've spoken I will do. You have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.

Moses said, Please show me your glory. And now here's attempt number three.

So again, blot me out of your book. God says, Show me the ways to get your favor.

God's not biting on that one. And here's the wild card. So attempt number three on Moses' part to figure out how these people can have

God's favor. He throws this weird curveball, and the curveball is,

Show me your glory, God. That's a strange gambit.

That's a weird one. Show me your glory. Alright, let's see what happens then.

So, God said, I will make my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you my name,

Yahweh. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom

I will show mercy. But, he said, you cannot see my face. For man shall not see me and live.

And so Yahweh said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock.

And while my glory passes by, I'll put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I've passed by.

And then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

Okay. Alright. So what does this have to do with people of Israel having their favor, having

God's favor restored? So, the Lord said to Moses, Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first.

I'll write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. Be ready by the morning. Come up in the morning to Mount Sinai.

Present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you to let no one be seen throughout all the mountain.

Let no flocks or herds graze opposite of that mountain. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first.

He rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai. And as Yahweh had commanded him, he took in his hand two tablets of stone.

Yahweh descended in the cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Yahweh.

So, to kind of put this in its proper context, God's causing His glory and His goodness to pass by.

Moses is now hidden in a cleft of the rock. God's hand covering it up as His goodness and glory passes by.

And he doesn't get to see it with his eyeballs. He gets to hear it with his ears.

Does that make sense? So, here's the goodness and the glory of God. And it comes in this pronouncement.

Yahweh. Yahweh. A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

So, there's the big proclamation. Yahweh. Yahweh. Merciful, gracious.

And the Hebrew is actually kind of fun on this one because it actually says, long of nose. God has a really long nose.

You're going, what? Now, it gets translated. So, you note the Hebrew idiom, long of nose, gets translated as slow to anger.

Have you ever been in the presence of an annoying stench? Okay. You women,

I shouldn't have put that out there like that. Those of you who are married and are women,

I get it. Yes, an annoying stench, usually it emanates from your husband. I get it. Okay. But when you're in the presence of an annoying stench, have you ever noticed that you literally go kind of, you feel claustrophobic, you start to get really tense and agitated, right?

So, to say that somebody has a long nose is to say that they're able to take in an annoying stench for a long period of time before it erupts into a volcano.

So, to say that God has a long nose is to say that he's really slow to anger in the annoying stench of our sin.

So, you'll note then, he didn't get to see the glory of God, he's now heard it.

Now, have any of you ever heard those Pentecostal preachers that talk about the glory?

And in fact, if you've heard the old Pentecostal preachers, even the modern ones today, they don't talk about the glory, they talk about the glory, right?

The glory came upon, right? This is how they talk about the glory. And when they talk about the glory, it has to do with an atmosphere where people are falling over, barking like dogs, having goosebumps, shaking uncontrollably, and they'll say, that's the glory.

Hogwash. The glory of God, according to this text, is that he is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and pardoning iniquity.

The glory of God is that he forgives sinners. That's the glory of God.

And what's really fascinating in here, in the midst of this revelation of the glory of God, comes one of the things that you sit there and go, wait, this seems contradictory.

On its face, it sounds like it's contradictory. So note the list. Slow to anger, merciful, gracious, bounding in steadfast love, keeping steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

But watch, but who will by no means clear the guilty? Huh? If you pardon sin and iniquity, are you not letting the guilty go free?

Isn't that what that's all about? You'll note, it sounds contradictory. But this really can only be resolved in the cross, if you think about it.

So if God pardons iniquity, but he doesn't let the guilty go free or clear the guilty, it seems contradictory, but it only works if you put the cross into the equation.

And so here's the idea. Our collective stench, let's use the metaphor now being used here, the collective stench of our sin, that thing was thrown onto Christ, and he was punished in our place.

He became the guilty one. And so God forgives and God does not clear the guilty.

So is Jesus the guilty one? Yes. And no, but yes.

But it's yes because our sin was put on him, and he now the guilty one, he was punished.

He experienced the wrath of God in our place as our substitute. So God can actually say these things that seem contradictory, that he forgives and pardons iniquity, but doesn't clear the guilty.

Jesus becomes the guilty one then for us. You see the idea? Well, the

Mosaic covenant all in type and shadow in the sacrificial system points right to Christ. Unmistakably.

Yeah, long before. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

So we'll put it at, so Christ comes about 1500 years after this, roughly, you know, maybe 1450 to 1500 years after this.

And then we're 2000 years past that. So we're about 3500 years away from when this occurred in Saudi Arabia.

What's now modern day Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Yep.

Yep. And then Moses actually will, you know, in Deuteronomy, the last book of the

Torah, he will give explicit prophecies talking about the coming Messiah, the prophet who will come after him.

So, you know, we're led by the writings of Moses to believe that there is one coming.

And so that's the idea. So here then is the glory of God. That he is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity, transgression, doesn't clear the guilty.

No, Jesus wasn't cleared. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and children's children to the third and fourth generation.

And so Moses now hears this, then the glory of God. And these words that he hears, he now does like prayer 101.

I've said it before. If you want to learn how to pray, let God's word teach you how to pray.

Good place to start. Obviously the Lord's Prayer. And then the Psalms, the

Psalms, they are prayers in and of themselves. And so the idea is, is that if, since you don't, we in our sinful nature do not know how to pray, right?

Let God's word instruct you. So now Moses has what he's looking for in this revelation of the glory of God.

He has exactly what he's looking for. And so he's going to take these words that he heard while the glory of God passed by, and he's going to pray them back to God, which is a great way to pray and watch what happens.

Because remember, up to this point, God's all those people that you brought out there, your people.

I have nothing to do with them. I'm not going with you. I'm sending an angel. If I were to go with you for even a little bit,

I would consume you all because you're a stiff neck people. This is how God's talking, right? All of a sudden, after Moses takes these words of God that he heard and praise him back to God, watch

God's tune totally change. It's very fascinating. So Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and he worship.

And he said, if now I have found favor in your sight, oh Lord, please let the

Lord go in the midst of us for it is a stiff neck people and pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for your inheritance.

So there it is. He takes the words of God, the glory of God, praise it back to God.

And now God changes his tune. They said, behold,

I'm making a covenant before all your people. I will do marvels such as not been created in all the earth or in any nation.

And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of Yahweh. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

Observe. I will command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the

Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the parasites, the high vice, and the Jebusites. Take care.

Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst and you shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their

Asherim, and you shall worship no other God. For Yahweh, whose name is jealous, is a jealous

God. Lest you make a covenant with any of the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and you are invited to eat of his sacrifice.

And you take of their daughters for your sons, their daughters whore after their gods, and make your sons whore after their gods.

Now a little bit of a note here. God's changed his tune. He's going to go with them. He's going to drive out these people.

And then you're going to see one of the most graphic and unflattering metaphors used regarding idolatry in Scripture.

And it's really super strong. And so you'll note then that idolatry, the worship of a false god, is likened to the sin of adultery, unfaithfulness to a spouse.

The two kind of seem to have parallels in that sense. And it makes sense when you consider it in light of the bigger revelation that the church is the bride of Christ.

So to commit idolatry is to commit adultery against God.

And now it's being used here in a very graphic term. And you'll note God pulls no punches.

You worship that God. You are whoring after it. Wow, is that strong.

I don't think it gets much stronger and more graphic than that. Describing the worship of a false god as the equivalent of going to visit a sex worker.

Isn't that what they're called nowadays? You can't call them whores or prostitutes anymore. Now they're just called sex workers.

Yeah, that's the way our culture is. Yeah, I know. Shows you the magnitude of the sin of idolatry.

So you shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread.

This is the Passover. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread as I commanded you at the time appointed in the month of Abib.

For in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. All that open the womb are mine.

All your male livestock, the firstborn of a cow and sheep, the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb.

Or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.

And none shall appear before me empty handed. Now this is kind of a fascinating thing here.

And you'll note then that this then will become kind of the superstructure of a major concept within Judaism and one that we should not disregard or not pay attention to.

And here's the idea. You remember on the day of the Passover, the first feast of unleavened bread, the children of Israel were still in slavery and it was on the eve of their being set free from slavery.

And God in that last plague, the killing of the firstborn, made no distinction between Israelites and Egyptians in this sense.

That any home with the blood of a lamb on the lintels, on the doorposts, the destroyer would pass over.

And that lamb was the substitute for the firstborn.

If there was no blood on the door of the lintel, the destroyer would go into the house and the firstborn would die.

And now moving forward, God here in this command says in all the successive generations that will come, the firstborn, those who open the womb, they also have to be redeemed.

And you'll note by putting this commandment in there that this sets the basis for a major thinking, a major doctrine, a concept within Judaism that I think actually has absolute validity.

And the idea here is that the story of the Exodus is not their story.

With the retelling of the story of the Exodus and the redemption of all of the firstborn, which was required, the story of the

Exodus becomes our story and we are participants in it.

And so the reading out of the biblical texts on Passover as it relates to the plagues and then the

Passover lamb itself, all of this, that wasn't something that took place then.

This is our history now. Strange way of thinking, but this is how

Jews think of this to this day. And this passage forms that basis.

But I would argue, brothers and sisters, that the

Passover being type and shadow and we having the

Lord's Supper, Jesus Christ, our Passover lamb who was slain,

His blood covering us so the destroyer passes over us, this is not their story either.

This is our story. We are all a part of this.

And so this commandment here then regarding the firstborn having to be redeemed is like the hinge or the chain link that makes it so the following generations of those who came out of the

Exodus, their kin, are connected then to those who experienced the

Exodus with their own eyes and ears and body. It connects them to them so that they're not taken away from it.

It's not some ancient history, but it's a present history that they were a part of. Then Christ, by instituting the

Lord's Supper and we see that He is our Passover lamb, He now connects us through them all the way back to Moses in the

Exodus. So this is our story, not their story. Does that make sense? This isn't their history.

This is our history. And there was no Norwegians in the bunch. So, right?

All right, keep moving then. Six days you shall work.

On the seventh day you shall rest. In the plowing time and in the harvest you shall rest.

You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, which by the way is the Feast of Pentecost.

The Feast of Weeks is the Feast of Pentecost and this is the counting of the sheaves.

After the Passover, you count 50 days. That became known as Pentecost.

Pentecost is actually Greek. But the Feast of Pentecost is the Feast of Weeks of the first fruits. And it's a harvest festival.

The first fruits of the wheat harvest, the feast of the ingathering at the year's end. And you'll note something here which is really fascinating.

And that is that note then the big holidays of ancient

Israel. Note their kind of typological significance. Passover, hooking us into Jesus Christ.

Jesus, our Passover lamb. The Feast of Weeks is the actual day on which the church begins on the day of Pentecost.

And then there was Yom Kippur, which was another really big holiday. I don't think it's mentioned here yet.

But Yom Kippur was the Day of Atonement and that day prefigures Good Friday.

And then the final feast was the Feast of Booths and the Feast of the Ingathering, which was again a harvest festival.

And you'll note that every single one of these feasts has some kind of theological significance that we're looking to.

And so the idea then is that the fulfillment of these feasts, there's only one that's waiting for its final fulfillment.

And that's the final ingathering harvest feast, which is in type and shadow representing kind of the blowout party at the end of the age.

At the ingathering of humanity and the separating of the wheat and the chaff and the wheat being brought into God's eternal barn, if you would.

It's fascinating how in type and shadow all of this has themes that we can relate to. So three times in a year, all your males shall appear before Yahweh Elohim, the

God of Israel. Now this is another important little one here. And we'll see this as the

Old Testament unfolds. But if any of you know anybody who's into what's called the

Hebrew Roots Movement, which is a modern Judaizing heresy, boy, and I debated right before I came to Kongsvinger, I debated somebody in the

Hebrew Roots Movement regarding the Sabbath. And these are people who literally are taking the

Mosaic Covenant and trying to put Christians under it. You know, in much the same way that the

Judaizers were doing that at the time of Paul, when Paul wrote the epistle to the

Galatians. And what's fascinating is that they claim, here's the thing, they claim that they are keeping the

Passover, that they keep the Sabbath, and that they're keeping all the Old Testament feasts, to which

I usually will ask them, so your men travel to Jerusalem every year, three times a year for these feasts?

No. We celebrate them here. Well, then you're not keeping them. You're not keeping them.

Well, how do you figure? This text. Three times in the year shall all your males appear before me,

Yahweh Elohim, the God of Israel. And he goes on and says, for I will cast out nations before you, enlarge your borders, no one shall covet your land.

When you go up to appear before Yahweh, your God, three times a year. So three times a year, all of the men were required to travel up to where God placed his name.

Where was that? Anyone want to hazard a guess?

It's in Israel, Jerusalem.

It became Jerusalem, but it wasn't always Jerusalem. The place where God's name dwelt at first was where the tabernacle was pitched.

Wherever the tabernacle was, all the men had to travel to Jerusalem three times a year.

And then eventually the tabernacle became a permanent facility. Solomon built the temple.

And you'll note then, when you read the Gospel of John, it talks about Jesus traveling to Jerusalem for these feasts because he had to keep this perfectly.

And so, you know, over again, you ask the, you know, so somebody says, well,

I celebrate the Feast of Weeks. No, you don't. You're not appearing before God in Jerusalem.

Well, that would be expensive. So in order to keep this, you must go there.

In fact, on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter two, you'll note there were people from all over the world that were there in Jerusalem for the

Feast of Pentecost, for the Feast of Weeks. Why? Because the place it's to be celebrated and observed is not

Poughkeepsie, New York. It's Jerusalem. So people who say today,

I am a Torah observant Christian. I'm into the Hebrew roots of Christianity.

And I celebrate and observe the Old Testament feast days. No, you don't.

Well, I keep the Sabbath. No, you don't keep that either. The Sabbath is a day of perfect rest, and it must be enforced with the death penalty.

Do you kill your children when they do work on the Sabbath, on Saturday? No, I want them to be able to keep doing the chores around the house.

Why would I want to kill them? So don't sit here and tell me you're Torah observant.

All the people who claim they're Torah observant, they are literally deluded. Literally deluded.

And they're not paying attention to the requirements. The details require. The men show up. Now, the women and children were not required to make this trip.

They could. So remember the account early in the Gospel of Luke where Joseph and Mary lost

Jesus? Could you imagine losing the Son of God? Okay.

I remember years and years ago. So Josh was a little guy.

And so I took him to the mall to get Barb a little sanity time away.

So I took him to the mall, and we were going through JCPenney's, and I kid you not, I turned around for two seconds, and he disappeared.

And I couldn't find him. Could not find him at all. And this was the day before we had cell phones, so thank

God I didn't call. I didn't have the ability to call Barb and say, honey, I lost Josh. We eventually found him.

It turns out he was hiding. You know in those clothes racks where they were in a circle? He was right in the middle of one of those things.

Hiding from me. Ah! Anyway, but in the account where Mary and Joseph, they lose

Jesus, why were they in Jerusalem? They had traveled as a family to Jerusalem for one of the feast days.

And Jesus just hung back in the temple. All right?

We keep going? All right. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the feast of the

Passover remain until morning. The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of Yahweh your

God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. Now a little bit of a note. These are kind of like rapid fire commandments here.

So Passover sacrifice, what were you to do with that? Eat it.

Yeah, Passover sacrifice, eaten. When we get into the book of Leviticus, you're going to find out that pretty much all, with just a few exceptions, all of the sacrifices offered in the temple, they were to be eaten, consumed.

A portion goes to the priests to pay them for their work. Portions to be consumed by the family who brought them.

And you'll note, this is a recurring theme within Scripture. Sacrificial animals are to be consumed.

They're not to be just merely burned up. God expects you to eat them. You eat the

Passover lamb. You eat your atoning sin offerings. You get to Jesus Christ, who is our sin offering.

What do we do with him? Yeah, that's right. We eat his flesh because he tells us to.

And that's consistent then with this whole pattern. And so you know how that works.

Now, one of the arguments that oftentimes is brought up as it relates to the understanding that Christ is truly present in the

Lord's Supper, body and blood, goes back to the Levitical commands about eating blood.

You'll notice in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Leviticus, you'll see explicit commands. You are not to eat the blood.

Why? Why are you not to eat the blood? Answer. The life is in the blood.

You are not to eat the blood. The life is in the blood. And this becomes like a recurring theme over and again in the

Old Testament. No eating blood. The life is in the blood. No eating blood. The life is in the blood.

You pour out the blood. The life is in the blood. It's in the life of the blood that atonement is made, Leviticus says.

The life is in the blood. And then you get to Jesus, and He says, Take drink. This is the blood of the new covenant shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. What's the change here?

And of course, Christ says, My flesh is true food. My blood is true drink.

Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you, Jesus says.

And the Jews went, So Jesus says,

Take drink. This cup is new covenant in my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

The very reason why God prohibits the eating of blood of animals because the life is in the blood becomes the exact reason why we are to have the

Lord's Supper because the life is in the blood. No, no, no, no, no.

Now, yes. But, but, but the life is in the blood. Ah. Okay.

So, you know, this, we're starting to see this theme beginning to show up for the first time now in the

Old Testament. The best of the first fruits of the ground should be brought to the house of Yahweh. This becomes a problem, by the way.

So I don't know if you've noticed this about crops. There's a whole percentage of the crops that you pull out of the ground or you harvest, and they are pristine, perfect.

And then you've got this group of crops that are ganky. Okay. You know what I'm talking about?

Is it just me? I've just noticed. I don't know. I don't do any farming, but I've just noticed that, you know, you go to the store and they always put out the pretty fruits.

And then the fruits that, yeah, you could use a little bit of a makeover. They end up on a different shelf and they're a little lower priced.

Or have you ever noticed that sometimes when you're biting into an apple you just get the wrong one? You know what

I'm saying? It's a horrifying experience. So note this then, that God knows perfectly well that you're going to be taking a look at your harvest and you're looking at that going, oh,

I can't wait to have that. And then you look at this part of it and you go, I'll give that to the pigs.

Okay. Okay, right? This is how you think. And so God says that part that you're going to give to the pigs, go ahead and give it to the pigs.

But I get a piece of the best stuff. So the offerings that are to be made are not of sick animals or grain offerings that have mold and mildew and stuff on them.

You bring the best. That's the idea. And then this little command, boy, this tells you something about God, is that God, as the creator of the universe, created milk to be the nutrition, the way in which little babies are fed and cared for.

And there is a practice that is absolutely 180 degrees opposite of God's character, taking that good gift that God had intended and then using it to actually kill a baby goat and then eat it.

It's just very, very, very, very sad practice. And God absolutely forbids that.

So it talks about properly using the things that God has made. So Yahweh said to Moses, Write these words, for in accordance with these words,

I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. So he was there with Yahweh for 40 days and 40 nights.

Hmm. 40 days, 40 nights. How long did it rain for the flood?

40 days, 40 nights. How long was Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness? 40 days.

Huh. Okay. You'll note that this is like a big number. You know?

Yeah. And he neither ate bread nor drank water. Isn't that interesting?

Huh. Moses was in the presence of God in the wilderness and he fasted for 40 days.

Huh. Okay. And so you'll note then that that little detail is important to know because when you get into the early part of the

Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter four, we'll take a look at that real quick. Now we know from church history that Matthew wrote his gospel first.

He was the first of the apostles to write a gospel. And it was originally, according to one of the church fathers, was written in Hebrew, was translated into Greek very shortly after it was written.

But this was a gospel that was purposely written to an audience of people who were

Jewish. And what's fascinating is that when you kind of study out even the structure of Matthew, it's got like five different major pieces to it.

It's like a mini Torah the way it's written out. And so if you're a Jew and you know your

Torah and you know your Exodus and you know that Moses was with God for 40 days and he didn't eat for 40 days, then you see this detail.

This is like a big signal. So Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

Now we read this and go, of course he was hungry. He didn't eat for 40 days and 40 nights.

But a Jew reading this would go, whoa, wait a second, Moses did that same thing too.

And immediately their antennae are going, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Something's going on here.

Something different about this Jesus. So you'll note, knowing your Old Testament is going to help you see that Jesus in his own life, the way he lived it and the things that he did, are screaming.

He's the fulfillment. He's the one promised in the Old Testament. He's the one Moses said would come and he just did the same thing

Moses did. That's part of the story. And it's just not a throwaway detail.

Alright, coming back then. Hang on a second here, I've got too many tabs open. Way too many tabs.

Alright. So he was there for 40 days, 40 nights. He ate, neither ate bread nor drank water.

He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

When Moses came down from Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain,

Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

Now, we're going to stop there and we'll pick up from this detail next week about Moses' shining face and then look what the

New Testament does with this detail. It's extremely fascinating when you kind of connect the two.

But we'll come back to Moses coming down with a glowing face next week.