Colossians 2:14 - Blotting Out The Handwriting of Ordinances

How's everybody? Great. Thank you, Matt and Maddie. Good to see all of you today.

We had a good group in Sunday school today, I noticed. Appreciate you guys coming out early and you benefited greatly because that was one of the best lessons

I've ever heard and it was really great, Dave. I appreciated it. Shall contemplate it.

In fact, some of it is now in my sermon, so a couple of verses. We're in Colossians chapter 2, of course, the last half and we're going to continue on with this idea of what it means to, you know, that the law has been nailed to the cross and today we're going to, at the end, we're going to talk about what it doesn't mean because it can be confusing.

It's both true and allegorical at the same time, but it could be confusing what you might think that means.

It might not be exactly what it means, so we'll talk about that when we get to the end today. We didn't have time to do that last Sunday because we weren't there yet.

My sermon's never over. It's next Sunday. It continues, so this is still a continuation of last

Sunday. All right, so let's pray and we'll get started. Lord, thank you so much for this time together to get to dig into your word again after the first hour, which was so wonderful.

Now bless this hour in Jesus name. Amen. So let me remind you of Colossians 2, 12 and 13 because we're really on verse 14.

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of the

God, of God. That means the faith that comes from the operation of God who has raised him from the dead.

And that operation, part of what it is, it is the raising of Jesus from the dead, but it's also the raising of us in him.

We were in him. The father placed us in him and when he arose, we were in him.

And that is part of the operation of God. And so it happened 2000 years ago, but part of another part of the operation of God is that he gave us the faith of Jesus and all these other things that we've talked about.

Now verse 13 is a magnificent verse. I've used it effectively talking to Roman Catholics and certain other people who believe in salvation by works.

And you might want to mark it and use it someday if you get the opportunity. And I like to just ask them the question, how does regeneration work?

And let them think about it a minute. Don't use the word salvation because it's a bigger subject, but regeneration.

And that means the born again experience. How does that work? All right. So ask them that question and then read this verse.

Wow. That's on our system, was it? Or was it just now my ear is still plugged, so everything's echoing.

That sounded really interesting to me. Did it come from up there? That? Can you come turn it off,

Davo? Oh, Matt will do it. Maybe it means it's battery just ran down. No, it probably didn't run down.

It'll keep doing it. I've never heard that do that. Have you? Because it's hard to turn back.

If it does it again, we'll know this is a sign. All right. Let's hope it doesn't do it again, right?

We don't want that kind of sign. All right. So look at this. This is so good. And you being dead in your sins, depravity of man, the state we're born in, and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, that means it's the old sin nature.

You're still living in the old man. At the very moment you meet Jesus, you're in that state.

So you didn't save yourself. You didn't want him until the

Holy Spirit showed up and made you want him. And when I say made you,

I don't say that he took over your will. All I'm saying is he just showed him to you.

And since you were his from the foundation of the world, there was a dead little kernel of a spirit in your life that was looking for that on and off your whole life.

And boom, the Holy Spirit just had to show Jesus to you and you came alive.

So that's what this is describing. He hath, let's see, this is my own handwriting.

I can't already see it or read it actually. Some of my family knows what I'm talking about.

The uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened, and when I'm talking to the

Roman Catholic or whoever, I'll point up when I say he, hath he, and I'll point up like that right there.

So I'm helping them understand who that is. Hath he quickened together with Jesus, having forgiven you all trespasses.

Now you don't really, if you don't really think about this a lot, you won't see how this ties in with verse 14 because verse 14 and all the rest of chapter just destroys legalism.

Because verse 14 is what Rona says, blotting out. Well, what blotted it out? Jesus dying on the cross that it just talked about.

Jesus dying on the cross, blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.

Now I'm going to talk at the end of the message what that doesn't mean because you could think that it means by you nailed the, as I demonstrated already and more today,

I've got new verses, continuation of the verses that show that it's not just talking about the ceremonial law.

It's not just talking about the judgment, which means you can't eat catfish if you're a Jew. It's not talking about only that.

It's also talking about the moral law and many theologians will say it's not. And it's confusing when they say that and incorrect because it's unbiblical.

So it's not only all three of, if you want to divide it, see, I don't think the Bible divides it.

I do think we, as we study could make divisions of the moral law.

I think of the 10 commandments when you say that, like thou shalt not kill, et cetera. And then you have the civil law, which is like, if your ox kills your neighbor's ox, then, you know, these were laws for the

Jews, how they ran their nation, right? God gave it to them. And then you've got the ordinances. But the problem is the word ordinance in Old and New Testament is sometimes used for the commandments.

So it's like it's interchangeable. So it's really not in a division that God meant for us to do, I don't think. But you could say the ordinances are the religious part, like how do you build a wilderness tabernacle?

What's the pattern of it? And how do I do the sacrifices properly? So if you want to divide those up like that, it doesn't bother me if it's just a tool for study.

But understand that the words don't always mean that, I mean, sometimes ordinance means commandment.

All right. So you see what I'm saying? So it's not, it's not really, it's a theological concept.

There's nothing wrong with it though. But I do like the fact of thinking about the moral law.

And many theologians will say when it says that the law was nailed to the cross, it does not include the moral law.

And by that, they usually mean the 10 commandments and maybe even some of the other Levitical commandments, because where you draw that line would differ among each of us.

And they say it doesn't include that. And the problem that you have with that is that then that leaves room for legalism.

It leaves room for a person to say, okay, but we still need to worship on Saturday. Because part of the 10 commandments is the, you know, worship on the

Sabbath, which is Saturday. So you have a problem if you understand grace, and you run into a group of people that believe it didn't include the moral law, and they try to convince you.

The only way they can convince you is if you have not done this study. Now, this is a 57 -page study though. So not all of you are going to have time, because you work for a living.

I mean, I do too, but I don't know. God just multiplies my time. I don't know. I can't, people ask me, how do you do this?

And I say, I don't know. But I've done it 45 years, so it gets easier. I've spent more than 14 hours on this just in the last two weeks.

And that was studying a 52 -page paper I wrote in 1999, or 2000 when a certain person worked for us, 2001 or 2002.

So this takes a lot of study to get this right. So no wonder a lot of people don't.

And you think guys that write these books, they're theologians, right, that you've heard of, and many of you like them, that they get all this stuff right.

No, they don't, because many, many times the problem is you don't see the forest for the trees. So you get so enthused in a particular passage and what it means, you don't stop to check and see if your interpretation fits the whole of the

Bible. And great theologians make that mistake. I'm sure when I start Monday morning writing my first book,

I will have something wrong in there, and hopefully you guys will find it first before we publish it or something, you know.

And if any of you want to be, usually it's just for an author, it's like your wife and maybe one or two other close friends that you even let see the first manuscript.

But if you want to read the first manuscript before it's published and help me with it, I'm open. You just let me know and I'll get you a copy.

And no one will volunteer for that, and I don't blame you. But the point is, you can get so into your topic that you miss the hole and you don't make it quite fit everywhere.

So many theologians have made this mistake here, and they said, well, this doesn't include the moral law. It wasn't nailed to the cross. Yes, it was.

So were the Psalms, and so were the prophets. And you probably have never heard a preacher say that or read it.

Has anyone ever read that anywhere? Okay, so does that make it a private interpretation of me?

No, because the private interpretation means one that doesn't fit the whole of Scripture. It doesn't mean that other brothers and sisters in the past have said the same thing.

It doesn't have to mean that. Now, I like to, do you know why I like to check what brothers and sisters in the past say?

Because it helps me double -check. You know, I want to double -check and say, did

I just invent something totally new? Or did Spurgeon talk about it? The thing about the faith of Jesus saves you.

I was so happy one morning when Charlotte was doing her devotion thing, reading Spurgeon, and he said that.

He said, oh, this verse says the faith of Jesus, not in Jesus. I said, wow, that's great. But I really don't know.

I think probably we would find someone that did say it includes this, but I haven't yet. But I know the

Scripture does, and I'll continue to show that to you as we go today. Very clear. Jesus said it, and the

Apostle said it. So very, very clear, and it's important to understand. But when you look at verse 13, you can understand a little bit better what it does mean that the law was crucified.

Because what it means is, is, now let's read this one again, verse 13. You know,

I'm gonna put my glasses on this time because I butchered it. And you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, number one, at that state, you cannot get saved by the law, can you?

I don't care if someone showed you the Ten Commandments, you are not going to keep them. Certainly not in your heart. Maybe physically you might keep them for a while.

So you're not in a position to get saved with the law, number one. And then it says, while we were in that state, has he quickened us together with Christ?

So the Holy Spirit awakened us and played, now this is a very important part of this you can miss if you don't think it all through.

He placed you into Christ, that's called spirit baptism, and it happens at your regeneration moment, your spiritual birthday, you're placed into Christ, you're baptized into Christ, placed into Christ.

Now that placing of Christ into you and you into him is what the

Bible means, and we talked about it several weeks ago, on Christ in us, the hope of glory.

The only hope of living right, the only hope you have of being holy as he is holy, is if he's in you and your spirit filled, because when you're in the flesh, you're not going to do it very often.

You can be good in the flesh. Ben and I were talking about that last night. We had a guru moment, I mean, what do you call it?

A monk moment, where we actually got two hours just talking about the Bible. Your old man can do right, and you know how

I know that? Because you're training your children to have character, and some of them aren't born again yet, correct?

But they're better at their character than they were before you started training, would you agree with that? So their old man is keeping the law in some cases, so you can do some good as a lost person.

How many of you agree with that? All right, but you can't be good in God's sight, can you? Because we're not perfect.

Even the new man, well, we don't sin in the new man, but the problem with the new man is we go out of him. We go back into the flesh.

I haven't figured out how that works yet. I wish I could figure it out, and then I would never do it again. I would just be, you know, holy as he is holy all the time, and Charlotte is really laughing at that one.

And so is Ben back there. But anyway, you know, all my kids, oh my gosh, let's don't go there. No one gets to testify today, okay?

So when he quickened us, now this idea of together with him, do you realize that you could not have been on that cross with him unless you had been baptized into him by the

Holy Spirit because of the Father, and the Father's outside of time, and he's able to take you back 2 ,000 years and put you in that body.

But you have to be connected to be in his body. You have, and the only way you were connected is spiritually, by the way, not physically, right?

But spiritually, you're literally in him. Your old man was in him when he died, and when he was buried, and when he came out, your new man was born, or the potential for your new man, if you want to put it that way, was born.

And it was going to happen. It was predestinated.

It was going to happen that in your timeline 2 ,000 years later, you were going to have a spiritual birthday, and you're going to be quickened.

Hath he quickened? That's the calling of the Holy Spirit, the effectual calling. Together with Christ puts you back 2 ,000 years ago, and that is a spiritual miracle.

It's not something in the physical world we understand very well unless we think about it a lot, and then it makes, then we kind of go hallelujah.

All right, so because of that baptism into him, the result is having forgiven you, having is past tense even in English.

In Greek, it's past tense. It might be aorist. I didn't check it out for this morning, but either way, it's past tense.

Having forgiven you already, all trespasses. How many of them have you done 2 ,000 years ago?

None of them. So it's looking forward to all of them, and it means every sin you'll ever do and have done your whole life is forgiven already.

You stand, you're standing as a born -again person is forgiven before God the

Father. Now, if that's true, why do you need to keep the law? Well, you don't need to keep it for salvation, do you?

So what would the use of it be? How about to educate us on what

God is like? Don't you think all of the laws are telling us God's character, and we're supposed to be molded into his image in the

Word of God. Dave's lesson was so good. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit together work on us and sanctify us.

Isn't that true? So the Old Testament is just as useful, if not more than,

I won't say more, but just as useful as the New Testament because you're going to see some words in this study like pattern is a pattern of the true.

All of the things that happen in the Old Testament are types and examples that show us

Jesus. All of those little various, so many sacrifices, I've studied it before, but it's been a while, but when

I did it was so much stuff. You get down in the details of all these sacrifices for different things, like there's a sacrifice for sins you didn't even know you did.

There's sacrifice for ones you didn't know you did. I mean, how did they even remember all that stuff, right?

Let alone keep it. Well, they couldn't keep it perfectly. That was why they need Jesus, but the point is all of that is there, and every one of those sacrifices were accomplished in one man, and his name was

Jesus Christ, that man that Matt sang about with us. That name is the only name by which you can be saved because that one person kept all those laws and was all of those sacrifices.

He was both the scapegoat that the priest took your sins, put it on the goat, and sent him out in the wilderness, which pictures hell.

He took your sins to hell, and he was the sheep, the lamb with no blemish, who was killed to pay the price and debt of our sin.

He was both, and all those other little sacrifices, the dove and all the things that were sacrificed, all of it pictured, pointed to him, and why is it that now today people want to go back to that, which is the picture, rather than having the real thing?

And the real thing is in your heart, and Jesus taught it, and the Apostles taught it, and people want to miss it because they'd love legalism.

You have to guard it. Why do I harp on it so much? Because when I'm gone, the next generation has got to guard it, or someone will sneak in.

It says they come in unawares. They look like a great person. Some of them say, well, I'm part

Jew. That's a real sign to watch the person. So can you see how important verse 13 is in understanding what verse 14 means?

Because when it says that the law was nailed to the cross, it doesn't mean it was destroyed in the sense of it's gone.

What it meant was the use of it is not for your salvation. It is to picture

Christ so you know him better, and to show you God's character by the way he is so you can be more like him, and to inform our brain of that so that our new man, when he's in control, can access that brain that has all that scripture in it.

And man, Jeannie, that thing you said today in Sunday school, you're out there in the forest, and you're picturing yourself, you're talking about yourself out there praying, and you said, but you know what?

If I hadn't been in the word, you know, your whole saved life, and the

Holy Spirit couldn't bring scripture into my mind, I would only get half of the experience.

That was beautiful. Write that down somebody, because I'll forget it, and I don't want to forget it.

That's what this is all about. All of the scriptures, Old Testament, New Testament, the

Psalms, and the prophets that you read are informing your mind so that your new man can, and the

Holy Spirit can access it when you need it. And I will stand by this, your spirituality and holiness is directly proportional to the amount of time you're in the word, more or less.

Now, so given the fact that you're now baptized into Jesus, now he also accomplished this when he died.

He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that you could not keep, and that were actually killing you, sending you to hell, which was contrary to our flesh.

Our flesh hates that stuff, right? Wouldn't you agree? I mean, before you were saved, like Dave said, the Bible was boring.

Yeah, it was. And he took that out of the way, nailing it to the cross. So the ordinances, the law, nailed to the cross.

What does it mean? It means we don't use it to live by as a list of things to do to get

God to be pleased with us so he'll save us. That's not his purpose. Jesus died to save us, and when he does save us, he then uses the

Spirit and the Word of God, Old Testament and New, to grow us, and it's always the same.

He used the same two to save us, the Spirit and the Word of God to save us, and so we grow by it.

Now, that handwriting, however, has been nailed to the cross.

We no longer allow anyone to teach in this church that you must keep any part of the commandments, whether it's moral law or any of it, in order to be saved or to be more right with God than the next guy.

That's legalism. All of, when we finally do finish Colossians 2, the whole rest of that chapter is nailing it.

You're talking about nailing it to the cross. It started out with verse 14, and it gets stronger as it goes through those verses on the fact that the

Old Testament economy is done away, and now we're living the gospel. We're living the gospel of the kingdom is what we're pressed into.

So, let's look at this.

I'm going to start this morning a little bit with first Jesus's teachings, and then I'm going to talk about some of the

Apostles' teachings on this subject, and the subject is the teachings of Jesus Christ concerning the replacement of the

Old Testament economy with the New Testament economy. Now, theologians use the word economy because what it means is there's an

Old Testament way of doing things. There's an Old Testament way of approaching God and how

God deals with man, and then there's a New Testament way of doing things, of knowing

God and how God approaches us and how we approach Him, and they're different. So, they're like different economies, and I don't know why they picked an economics word for that, but I think it means, it's just an old way of using the word to mean how it works.

It doesn't work the same in the Old Testament as it does in the New. Now, some aspects are the same because really the old, the true person, it was by faith.

It was keeping the law by faith, and when you messed up, you did a sacrifice, picturing

Jesus coming someday, and think about this. When they died, they did not go to heaven.

Do you know why? Because Jesus hadn't died. The real lamb hadn't died. Only the pictures had died.

Now, think about it. Only the pictures had died. They had to go to Sheol, which is in the center of this earth, right next to Hades, which is hell, but it was

Abraham's bosom, and God took care of him, and it was paradise, but it wasn't heaven. Why?

Gee, the Lamb of God had not died and paid their debt yet. You see?

Do you see how beggarly the Old Testament picture of the little animals is compared to what is the first thing

Jesus did after he died? Before he came out of that grave, he went down and preached to those people, and I believe the ones on the other side could hear him too, and I believe the demons that did their deed before the flood that got chained there because of their evil, they heard it too, and I believe

Satan who thought when he nailed Jesus Cross he had won, I believe he heard it too, and I learned something this week

I never thought of. I used to think that he then took them to heaven, but he didn't yet, and I'll tell you why, because that's during the three days he's in the grave is when he went down there and preached to the people in Abraham's bosom and probably the people in Hades.

I think 1st or 2nd Peter indicates them too. Not for their salvation, though.

They don't get another chance. They just like he's just telling the truth. You blew it, you know. I'm risen. You blew it.

You lost, but then when he came back after Resurrection Sunday, you remember when the women went looking for his body to put some more herbs and so forth on his body, and he's not in there, and they thought someone had sold the body, and they come out, and there's one account they thought it was a gardener, you know, and the gardener said, why do you look here among the living?

I mean among the dead. He is not here. He is risen. It was an angel, wasn't it, in human form.

Go tell the others, and they ran. Didn't do him much good because being women, the men did not listen to him.

They thought, ah, they're just being emotional, women, right? They're just being emotional. That cannot have happened.

He's dead. Oh, no, no, no, no. We looked and see like he's gone, and the angel told us he's risen.

All right. Do you remember that when they were on the way there that Jesus appeared to the women and tried to hug him, and he said, don't touch me, for I have not yet what?

I have not yet gone to the Father, which means taken my blood and sprinkled it on the mercy seat in heaven yet.

Later when he appeared in the room with all the disciples and the women, he said, here, touch the scar on my hand.

You see that it's me, so they could touch him after that. So it had to be after that when he went back, and I don't know when he did it, but I mean, he wasn't, he was on the earth on and off for 40 days, right?

But you don't see he is the whole time, do you? So I think at some point, let's say maybe late at night, he went back down and got him and took him to heaven, the

Jews that died in the Old Testament. But why couldn't they go in the first place? Because they were under the beggarly elements of the

Old Testament, but it's all they had. But now they have the new, and he preached to them, did he not?

And then he took him to heaven. You see the difference? Would you rather be down there in Shoal, right next to hell?

Or would you rather be in heaven where the throne of God is and the angels are and the elders are at this point?

It's way better. And why people want to hang on to the old, I don't know, but that's why

God puts so much of this information. So let's first look at what

Jesus says about it. All right, let me get you to turn to Luke chapter 22, verse 44.

Luke 24, verse 44.

And everybody got it? Now Jesus is speaking, right? And he said unto them, these are the words which

I speak unto you while I was yet with you, spake to you when I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the

Psalms. So when Jesus speaks of the law and the Old Testament and so forth, he is including the

Psalms and the prophetic writings like Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and so forth, and the laws of Moses, which is basically the

Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. And then, okay, so while I was yet with you, the words that I spake to you while I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled, written, basically, as you say, in the

Old Testament. That is what he did on the cross. When he died, he fulfilled it.

When we were placed into him, which is going to blow your mind when you see this in a minute because you've read this like me a million times and never noticed,

I never noticed it till the last two weeks, but you learn both new and old when you get in the word, don't you?

But when he put the Holy Spirit in us and connected us to God the

Father and to Jesus and to each other, now, all of a sudden, we were in him when he died on that cross and when all of this was fulfilled.

So we're part of the fulfillment of it too. And as we live our life now 2 ,000 years later, we are able to fulfill that law in the spirit, not in the flesh.

On a higher spiritual level, being connected to Jesus by the Holy Spirit and walking with him moment by moment as we choose to do it.

When we choose not to, we're not fulfilling anything. And most people that want to go back to the law, they're in the flesh anyway, and they love it for whatever reason and they're very unsuccessful at it, but they think they're great at it.

Pride is a big part of that. But the real walk is just to be in the spirit, connected to Jesus.

That thing you talked about burning in the heart when Jesus walked. Funny that you put that in that study because it has more to do with my lesson than yours.

But when you were teaching, my heart was burning and I knew

I had a hormone problem too because I was almost crying back there. Maybe it's the Holy Ghost problem.

All right, now let's follow this. All things must be fulfilled. Okay, so they were fulfilled.

So when it says that Jesus nailed the law to the cross, it doesn't mean he destroyed it, it means he fulfilled it.

You see the difference. All right, he did destroy it from the point of view of a legalizer using it to try to make you live by it.

Tip for salvation or to be more spiritual than the next guy. It's destroyed for that purpose, but it still has many purposes which we'll talk about at the end of the message.

Now look at verse 45. So all things must be fulfilled concerning me.

That means concerning Jesus. And you know, Dave, in your section you read, he was telling those two gentlemen, he took him back through all of the

Old Testament scriptures and showed them himself in the Old Testament, didn't he? Do you see how you've got all these types and symbols and models of Jesus?

He showed them and it said, it indicates he explained it to them. What's the word you used? Not fleshed it out, but you used a cool word for heat.

No, it was like a Dave Huber word. It wasn't a theological, no, you just said he laid it out there.

I liked it. I'm going to listen to the tape and I like the word you use because it's like he, he just showed him himself.

The word used is great in the Old Testament scriptures. The Old Testament is still used for that.

You see what I'm saying? That's not, that is not crucified. It's alive and it's still used for that, but it's not used to help you only in the sense that it pointed you to Jesus as a lost person.

Now that you're saved, you're in Christ and you have the law written in your heart and you have a whole different system, a whole different economy because the other economy has been done away with by what

Jesus did on the cross. So he showed them himself and look at verse 45, then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures.

So, uh, so he said unto them, thus, it is written and thus it behoove

Christ to suffer. Now, what does that mean? It is written. That means the Old Testament prophets talked about this hundreds of years, in some cases, thousands of years before it happened.

In case of the Psalms, thousands of years in the case of Isaiah and so forth, 600 or so years before it happened, it was written that it would happen.

Jesus is always pointing back to the Old Testament. So we can do that with people. We point back to the

Old Testament and say, look here where we see Christ in the Old Testament, because that builds their faith. Because listen,

I mean, if you know math, probability math of even of one man at exactly the right moment in history, fulfilling even just eight of these prophecies, and there's way over 300 of them, is like stacking silver dollars two feet deep across Texas and marking one and shuffling it in and blindfolding you and you find it.

That's the odds of that happening without God making it happen. So it is a mathematical impossibility that God doesn't exist.

And it's a mathematical impossibility that Jesus did not do what he said he did and what the prophet said he would do unless God exists.

Now here he says it is, it is written and thus it behoove

Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. So that's the gospel, isn't it?

Right? All right. And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in Jesus's name among all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

That's the Great Commission, isn't it? And you are witnesses of these things. Everyone has been saved as a witness of this.

That lightning you were talking about, Dave, that thunder you were talking about when it hits you, you never be the same.

And behold, I send the promise of my father upon you. What is that? That is the indwelling

Holy Spirit that makes all of this work and why you don't need the law for salvation or to be better.

You don't need it for that because you're connected to God. The promise that it talks about here, the promise of my father will be sent to you but tear you in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high.

What is that power for in your life so you can keep the imperatives in the New Testament? Not so you can just sit around and eat, drink, and be merry because I'm saved and once saved, always saved.

That's not a real Christian. A real Christian understands the book of James is full of effects that happened because you got saved.

They didn't cause your salvation but they're there now because you got saved and that all has to do with living right. Visit the widows, visit the orphans, or else your religion is not even real,

James says. But how can you do that? Our flesh doesn't want to go sit in the hospital all day or an old folks home, does it?

Our flesh doesn't want to go hang out with orphans, does it? So the only way you possibly do that is if the

Holy Ghost led you to do it on a given day and now you're keeping the imperatives. This is the new economy.

This is the New Testament life and the Old Testament style has been crucified and fulfilled but it's not of use for these things anymore.

So he talks about the gospel and the repentance and remission of sins is the salvation part and the indwelling of the

Spirit is the promise of my Father the Holy Spirit coming and filling us with power and then he led them out as far as Bethany and lifted up his hands and blessed them and it came to pass while he blessed them he departed from them and carried into heaven.

That's the Ascension. And they worshiped him. Now watch this because you missed this.

You know how I know you missed this because I missed it until I studied this this week for the first time to see some of these things. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and I want you to count three things here.

They had joy, they're joyful, and they were continually in the temple. That is obedience.

Listen ladies and gentlemen you don't go to church just because you want to unless the Holy Ghost made you want to because I remember what it was like being a saved young man.

The only few times I went with my grandma because she begged me I would sneak away with my best friend and go up in the third floor of that old church and explore all this junk they had up there and skip the sermon.

Come back down and sit by my grandma just in time for the altar call. She thought

I was at church. I was happy. She was happy. All right. Was I obeying the

Lord by going to church that day? No, right? So then when I got saved you can ask Charlotte, man we want to go to church five days a week.

What changed it? Well guess what? That indwelling Holy Spirit.

So look at this. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy because they're saved.

All right. They were continually in the temple because they were able to be obedient because they were saved.

And look at the last one. Praising and blessing God they worshipped. So the new economy this indwelling

Holy Spirit in our salvation in the law of God in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and by walking with him but I love what you said you better be in the

Word because you miss half of it if you're not. But the more you're in the

Word the more joy you will have in your walk. The more obedience you will have in your walk not by keeping a set of rules but you'll learn the rules by reading the scriptures you'll know what they are and they'll be in your heart and the

Holy Spirit will bring them to mind when you get close to messing one up. And the worshipful life only comes by this life not by sitting around reading the law and trying to keep the law.

It comes by walking with Jesus and your heart burning as he opens I wish I knew your word

Dave laid it out he laid out whatever that cool word was the scriptures.

Go play it right now I want to hear it. Okay all right so boy that's beautiful they worshipped him they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising and blessing

God amen it says. All right so in that very passage now remember that Jesus spoke of the law of Moses the prophets and the

Psalms and said all of it was fulfilled in his death and in our death with him we were crucified with him.

It's fulfilled in that sense it's crucified you understand? Any questions?

Seriously it's a hard thing this is meat y 'all there ain't no baby babies aren't gonna get this sermon but there's no babies in here even the kids here are more into meat than some of the adults in some places but thank

God for that. But there we have it the law of Moses the prophets and the

Psalms are included in that crucifixion of the law so here Jesus gives a more complete division of the

Old Testament the law of Moses the prophets and the Psalms a tripartite division it is not the same division that scholars use because they like to say the moral the civil and the ceremonial

Jesus never divided it that way he divided it into the law of Moses which includes all three of those right and the prophets and the

Psalms and they were all crucified and the result of it was joy and obedience and worship.

Wow so Jesus teaches that the gospel fulfills all the law the prophets and the

Psalms in other words the entire Old Testament economy is fulfilled by the New Testament economy he never divides the law in the moral judicial and religious but rather he divides the entire law of Moses the prophets and the

Psalms which is the basically almost the whole Old Testament if you leave out maybe the prophetic books

I mean I mean the poetic books. So now we see that everything in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

Psalms the entire Old Testament economy is encompassed in the New Testament gospel message of the death burial and resurrection of Jesus for the sins of his people and it includes the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit without that you don't have Christ in us the hope of glory we have no hope of obedience we have no hope of worshiping without Christ in us and us being in the spirit -filled mode so there it is so that's point number one so point number one according to Jesus the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the preaching of this gospel among all nations that repentance and remission of sins is in Jesus name is the fulfillment of all things written in the law of Moses which includes the moral judgments and ordinances and the prophets and the

Psalms in the entire Old Testament Jesus said it I didn't so there it is

I think he does a much better job of explaining it than I do too that was beautiful here's point number two this is quite amazing

Jesus taught that man loves legalism and God hates it turn to Luke chapter 16 verse 14 with me

Luke 16 14 let's go to 16 size fine

I've been able to read 14 for a long time and now having to use glasses so I'll go to 16 and lose the glasses eventually

I'll be like brother Otis it'll be strips of paper with big fonts one after another throwing at you throw them out there where you can read them yeah when

I can't get my computer to do it Dave will come over and fix it close the door and the

Pharisees yeah they would go over and spend two hours fixing the man's computer and he'd take him in there for a nap and he'd chat with him minute finally

Otis say Dave close the door that means leave close the door and the

Pharisees okay here we go Luke 16 14 and the Pharisees also who were covetous heard all these things don't you think it's interesting that the scripture says they were covetous why they're walking in the flesh and in the law and the law told him don't covet so they were coveting isn't that how it works they heard all these things and they derided

Jesus oh I love that imagine these theologians telling

Jesus you need to go to seminary son and he said unto them you are they which justify yourselves before men talking to the

Pharisees Jesus is but God knows your hearts for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God now what is it in them that he is saying was highly esteemed among men but an abomination with God the next verse shows us look at verse 16 the law and the prophets were until John since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into that he just ended the

Old Testament economy or he talked about when I go to the cross I mean just just a few days he's going to end the

Old Testament economy and he's going to begin the

New Testament kingdom gospel age and every man will be pressed in to that that and by the way pass there means all kinds of men

Jews and Gentiles what he meant so what is it that's highly esteemed among men the law and the prophets that lived until John and what is it that God hates when people want to use that after he's given us the

New Testament gospel and the real thing when they would prefer the sacrificial animals to the

Son of God on that cross and the Son of God risen then that's an abomination but men love it

Jesus said you love it he says you you you highly esteem this this legalism and yes they do they're everywhere and they always wear sheep's clothing and coming to help you know a better way from the scripture you got to watch it so the teaching that one comes into the kingdom of God via good works are by keeping the law that is highly esteemed among men but it's an abomination inside of God because it blasphemes the very one who died for his people third point

Jesus began to teach the difference between the law which kills and the spirit which brings life the end of the

Old Testament economy and the fulfillment of the law by him by himself he began to teach this look at Luke chapter 11 verse 13

Luke 11 13 least I'm staying kind of close we're flipping the pages isn't wearing you out this morning because I know this is a lot this is a it's a lot of stuff to look at Luke 11 13 if you then being evil you know a lot of people today when they want to talk about Christianity they talk about Jesus is just it's just all about love what's that word being a modern thing they like to say yeah that it's affirmate

Jesus just affirms everyone whether you're a homosexual or a sex change person or wannabe or whatever you are he just affirms all of that that is not in the

Bible but I kind of know where they try to get it but it isn't proper interpretation of Scripture because I want you to notice something when

Jesus said if you then being evil he is teaching a well -known doctrine that was well known in the 1800s and not so much today and it's called the depravity of man you being evil now how many of you would start your speech that way and and how much do you how do you think they liked his speech these

Pharisees did he care did it bother him one bit what they thought about it because he's telling them the truth for their sakes for their benefit just make sure that's our goal right you've been being evil if you know how to give good gifts to your children how much more shall the

Heavenly Father give the Holy Ghost to them that asked don't you think it's interesting that it didn't talk about an answer prayer for a new car or a new house or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a spouse or whatever the gift was

I want to be spirit -filled and anyone that asked for that he will give it isn't that interesting but they're so depraved they don't get that they don't want that and it's interesting that that's what he picked to use for an answered prayer and he was casting out a devil or demon and it was dumb it made the person it was in where he couldn't speak and it came to pass when the devil was gone the demon was gone in the

Greek it's demon the dumb spake and the people wondered because this person had never spoken his whole life and now he is singing praises to God and they were going what is going on here but some of them said this he cast out that demon by Satan that is the unpardonable sin in case you ever wonder what it is when you attribute anything work of the

Holy Spirit and say Satan did it yeah you know crit boarding and people can't commit that sin you just can't because you're filled with God you can't do it but lost people do it a lot and they sure certainly did it here and others tempted him and said hey we want to see a sign from heaven now isn't it interesting that they think the powerful thing you just did was

Satan in him and they want to see him do some more stuff yeah that's what the world wants to see at one point

Jesus called him an evil generation and he said I'm not gonna do a sign for you and the only sign I'm gonna do is

I'm gonna raise this body up three days later after you kill me that's the only sign you're gonna get

Matthew 12 10 and behold there was a man which had his hand withered and they asked him saying is it lawful to heal on the

Sabbath day now here's where I want you to think about this the letter of the law compared to the spirit of the law because the letter of the law says you do no work on the

Sabbath and the rabbinical law added to that like you can't even like all kinds of stuff you can't do on the

Sabbath obviously you like if your own son broke his leg and he's in the ditch you'd leave him there till till Sunday don't fix it on Saturday maybe not that I took that too far but stuff like that they added all these things so is it so Jesus they asked

Jesus is it lawful you for you to heal that man's withered hand on the Sabbath and they wanted to accuse him because they didn't think it was lawful because the rabbis had said it wasn't and Jesus who is the

Word of God said the Word of God doesn't say that and he said it to them what man is there among you that if you had a sheep and it fell into a pit on the

Sabbath day you won't grab him and pull him out of it out of the pit how much more than is a man better than a sheep wherefore it is lawful to do good on the

Sabbath days and at one point he said I'm the Lord of the Sabbath well listen the

Lord of the Sabbath lives in you right now and many of the fathers at one in particular of the fathers said that my

Sabbath is every moment of every day because Sabbath means rest in the Hebrew just means rest God rested on the seventh day we're supposed to have a

Sabbath and the Jews and the law say it's on Saturday and I say it's every moment we live the rest when we're in Christ which is every moment so you can't tell me when

I'm gonna worship because I'm gonna worship when I walk to the kitchen and get that donut here in a minute

I'm gonna worship when I walk to work I'm gonna worship when I'm in my car

I'm gonna worship when I'm reading the scriptures where I get the whole deal and not just half and and you can't tell me

I have to worship on Saturday and most of the Christians in church history worshiped on the Lord's Day which was

Sunday that is a fact of history so the legalist are lying to you when they said that's not true so in Matthew chapter 7 verse 12 therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you do also to them for this is the law and the prophets that's the fulfilling of the whole law in that one phrase

Jesus said so the fifth thing that Jesus teaches is that doing to others as you would have them do to you is all of the law and the prophets it fulfills it that's you fulfilling it because you're in Christ you can't fulfill it outside of Christ because you won't want to do it right but in Christ you have these urges to help people and it's natural for a born -again

Christian who's filled with the Spirit to want to live that way so now all the

Old Testament is kept or accomplished by treating others as you would have them treat you that is clearly a

New Testament concept this idea that would be higher than the

Old Testament law it's higher than trying to attempt to approach God with law is a higher principle it is in the heavenlies we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies the scriptures say it is a higher plane the law and the keeping of the law to please

God is on an earthly plane for a carnal person it has other uses the law does it's for lost people it's for children it's for lost nations to have laws in their land but it's not for the saved person to be better than the next saved person by little by keeping a list of rules it's not for that anymore this idea then that this all of this

New Testament economy is on a higher plane and it replaces the lower plane according to Jesus Christ now let's do one other one we're about out of time look at Luke chapter 16 verse 16

I've already sort of quoted this one but I don't want you to see it actually actually

I'll do two more points because it'll end up it will be seven points that's God's perfect number so Luke 16 16 the law and the prophets were until John the

Baptist since that time the kingdom this is Jesus talking since that time or after that time the kingdom of God is preached that's the gospel the kingdom the gospel of the kingdom and every man meaning both

Jew and Gentile all kinds of men are pressed into it and it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one tittle of the law to fail so that tells us that the nailing of the law to the cross does not mean the destruction of the law it means the fulfilling of the law in Christ and Jesus boy you know what else that verse does it shows that he believes in verbal plenary inspiration he believes that not only the ideas are inspired in the

Bible he believes the sentences are inspired the words are inspired and the little marks above the words are inspired by God and there's other places where the

Bible says he's preserved it for the last generation so we still have that it's that accurate here again the phrase the law and the prophet seems to encompass all the

Old Testament law not just a couple of parts of it and after John the Baptist the gospel of the kingdom replaced the

Old Testament law with regard to salvation and living right and every man

Jew and Gentile pressed into it pressed into it in the Greek means to be forced into it it means to crowd oneself into something or to be seized by something it's a whole different thing than it's trying to walk around and keep the law was in the

Old Testament now you're seized by the Holy Spirit as he draws you to Christ and awakens you and saves you and then fills you and then and then moves you to be obedient to the imp to all of the imperatives in the

New Testament and any that are in the Old Testament that would still apply other than don't eat catfish you know

I'm saying and any of the moral law I mean it's found the Old Testament to it is true there is moral law there and it's okay to put it in a group because it's there all of that we're we are brought to a place of empowerment to obey that by the new economy not the old economy it never worked it never it never made people's conscience feel good ever because their sins were just rolled forward they weren't eliminated ours have been removed and now turn to John 1 14 this will be the last one and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the only glory as of the own

I'm sorry the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth so my question would be you get that why would you want to go back to Moses you get that you get the actual lamb of God that Moses law pictured and you want to go back to the picture why you let someone come in this church and try to take you back to the picture and the first thing

I'm going to call you is a fool because Paul already called you that if you'd allow that he said you foolish

Galatians why do you think that you walk different than the same way you got saved which is by faith rather than by works and so here he is full of grace and truth and he lives in our hearts and John bear witness of him and cried saying this was he of whom

I speak he that comes after me is preferred before me let me tell you something that is a subliminal message not all that subliminal that John the

Baptist pictured the law and Jesus pictures grace and he is preferred higher than John the

Baptist would you agree with that he is preferred before me grace is preferred before law for he was before me he existed long time before Moses Jesus existed forever forever

Abraham saw Jesus long time before Moses even lived for he was before me and of his fullness have all we received and grace for grace there's the key the fullness of the spirit

Christ in us the hope of glory there's your obedience there's your worship there's your joy not in keeping the law for those purposes

I'll promise you it will not make you joyful if you make you a list and you try to keep them the best thing for you to put on that list is remember to walk with Jesus today remember to walk in the spirit today for the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ no man has seen

God at any time except the only begotten son which is in the bosom of the father and he's the one that declares him and there's your power all right so we're out of time 28 more pages to go no

I don't know how many but anyway thank you for bearing with me I don't want you to ever leave this church and ever be duped by a legalist

I don't think it'll happen once we get done with this study let's stand and have prayer together