Fulfilled in Christ - Part 3

Could I just share a topic with you? Since we grew up, certain speeches that say, Shalom, shalom, are the same word. And he said, and her, and his, and hers. And they're very much linked together. They say, shalom, shalom. And so that's what we're trying to do. And that's what we've been doing so far. Amen. Thank you. And Isaiah points to this. He says, shalom, shalom. Shalom, shalom. He's trying to say it on the East Coast, right? We welcome you to the house of the Lord. Isaiah. Thank you. I'm going to start with my mom and dad. Back, back, back. All right. I appreciate those thoughts. Appreciate the opening. I think very much touches on a characteristic of God. He will not be angry forever, the scriptures say. He is very much able to hold his peace. Really appreciated the ending thoughts there, Norman, about eternal rest and eternal unrest. And it very much ties in with things I want to talk about today. I want to wrap up this series that I started a few weeks ago about fulfilled in Christ. And this study has been a blessing to me. I hope it's been a blessing to you. It's been big. It's one of those things where I'm trying to cram the most important of the things in this message. We could just keep going on. About how Christ is the fulfillment of everything. And this all started out with a study of wanting to do a message of the Sabbath. Today's message is mostly about the Sabbath. As for wrapping up, the ways that we can be enlightened and inspired and encouraged by how Christ fulfills, there is no wrapping up. Maybe once Christ returns and wraps up the sky like a scroll and we sit at his feet, maybe then. There is just so much. Let's pray before we go on. Father in heaven, we thank you for this day, for this beautiful day and this place to gather and people to gather with. Thank you for the edification we've already received this morning. Help us to apply these things to our lives. We pray that you would help us now as we continue to look into your word, that your spirit could illuminate things for us and guide us into your ways. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, I hope the skeleton we talked about in the first message has some flesh and hopefully we can blow some breath in it today or get it to see how it applies in our lives. Especially how this subject of the Sabbath should look today. I hope in the other two messages I've established that there is an old covenant and that there is a new covenant. Remember, a covenant is a relationship, it's a partnership, it's a binding agreement. And God communicates with his creation through a covenant. God did not break his covenants with Adam and Noah and Abraham and Moses and David, he's still keeping them. They are not destroyed as in demolished, they are fulfilled. They're fulfilled in Christ with such a glory that surpasses the glory of the old covenant, that the old fades away like the moon and the stars do when the sun comes up. I hope it is well established in our minds that the new covenant is not just a renewed covenant. It is the fulfillment of the shadows, the figures, the types and all those things of the old covenant. It comes with a new priesthood and as it says in Hebrews of necessity, when there's a change of priesthood there's a change of law. It comes with a new law and with a new lawgiver. And I hope it is established in our minds that the old and the new covenant cannot be heirs together. Not any more than Isaac and Ishmael can be heirs together in the promise that Abraham had. The old and the new covenant cannot be heirs together. I hope it's established that the old covenant, its laws and precepts cannot lead us into Christ's promise. Any more than Moses was able to lead Israel into the land of Canaan. And that there's a distinction between the law and the prophets and the things that Jesus said. It is through that framework that we'll take a look at the Sabbath. Before I get into the Sabbath I want to talk a little bit yet about schoolmasters. Paul says this in Galatians 3. He says, but before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come we are no longer under a schoolmaster for we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Every good schoolmaster will work himself out of a job. A good schoolmaster takes somebody without understanding and he teaches and he instructs and he brings him to this place where he has understanding and then he's not needed anymore. He's become useless. The person has gained what the schoolmaster can offer. And now the schoolmaster has worked himself out of this job. And that's what the Mosaic law should do for us. It should work itself into uselessness for us. The Mosaic law brings us to Christ but not into Christ. It brings a slave into freedom but not a free man into a conqueror. It brings us from negative to ground zero but not above that. So this is kind of how this works. You've got a man who's in the negative. He's a lazy thief and he goes around and instead of working with his hand he just robs for what he wants. And he hears the law of Moses that is severe enough to make the whole mountain shake. And he hears, Thou shalt not steal. And it convicts him. And it brings him from that place of being a thief to this place where he now works with his own hands. And he gathers what he needs by the sweat of his brow. He becomes an honest man, a just man. Or the murderer who went around killing people and shedding people's blood. He hears this trembling schoolmaster law says, Thou shalt not kill. And it convicts him and he comes to this place where he quits shedding blood. And you could do this down through all these laws. And if a man governs himself by these laws, if we govern ourselves, if we govern our families, if a nation governs by these laws, they'll be blessed. They'll really be blessed. They'll receive blessings. The law makes a man just, fair, right, equal. It is eye for eye. It is tooth for tooth. It is ox for ox. It is ass for ass. It is equal, just, and fair. That's what the law is doing. But here comes Jesus. And he brings the faith. He brings in the new covenant. And he writes on our heart a new commandment. He said this thing to the apostles just before he died. He said, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another the way I have loved you. And Jesus demonstrated that love by his selfless, sacrificial life. And he also taught about it. And so this is what this thief that had stopped stealing and now came to this place where he's working and not stealing anymore, he hears Jesus and he hears, If someone takes your coat, forbid him not to take your cloak. If someone steals your possessions, don't ask him back. He's like, What? You mean it's not good enough for me to just stop stealing? I'm also supposed to suffer it when someone steals what I have? That's what he's saying. Or the murderer, he hears Jesus, who quit murdering because he heard the schoolmaster. He hears Jesus say, Resist not the evildoer. If someone smites you on the right cheek, turn the other one. He hears him say, Be as a sheep that goes to the slaughter. And he's like, What? I mean, it's not good enough for me to just stop killing people? Taking people's lives? I'm supposed to suffer it if people want to take my life? This doesn't sound like blessings anymore. It starts sounding like suffering. Consider the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and he said, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, Well, what are the commandments? Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy father and mother. And he's quoting Sinai, right? He's quoting the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. And this rich young ruler says, I've kept all those from my youth. Jesus knew something. He knew that in spite of him keeping all these things from his youth, within him is a heart that has not been touched yet with the new covenant. He is not loving his neighbors as himself. In fact, he's a very rich man and he said something to this man that was never ever quoted in the Torah. He said, If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have, give it to the poor, come and follow me. And it was too much. This man walked away sorrowful. This was too much. This was not the blessing he was wanting. The old covenant can bring a man from a self-destructive life to a self-preserving life, but it cannot bring us to this selfless life of Christ. And it's where most people stop. It's where most people say, I'm good, I don't break the Ten Commandments, and life is a blessing. And they walk away from the message of the new covenant. It's why Jesus said, No one having drunk old wine straightaway desires new, for he says the old is better. That is the Mosaic Law. It is a schoolmaster, and if we are to enter the kingdom of God, it will work itself out of a job. It will work itself into uselessness. God can change his laws without changing his will. Just like we can change our rules for our children without changing our will. And we do this all the time. I'm sure all of us parents do. Let me give you an example. If I live along a real busy road, I make a rule for my little children, You shall not cross the road. Don't cross the road. It's a precept, it's simple, it's understandable, and that's my rule. But my will is, I don't want my child to get hit on the road. In fact, once my child is older, I not only allow him to cross the road, I'll sometimes command him to cross the road. I'll instruct him to cross the road. It's because at the heart of what I wanted was not that you can't be on the other side of the road or cross it, it's that I didn't want you hit. And you were not at a level, your heart, your comprehension was not there. But once that's there, I'll command you to do the very thing that I had commanded you not, and I have not changed one bit as a father. It's the same way with positive commands. I want my children to be thankful. And when somebody gives them something, I want them to say thank you. And if they don't say thank you, they can't have the thing that was given to them. But once they have a thankful heart, there's no need for that rule. They'll express their thankfulness in ways far beyond thank you. But I'm working towards something. There's a will and there's a command, and they're not always the same thing. The command is a means to an end and not the end in itself. God had to give commands to a people who were stiff-necked and rebellious and hard-hearted in the old covenant. But in the new covenant, there is a change of law. It says that in Hebrews that there's a change of law. Because we enter into this covenant with people, God enters into this covenant with people who have a willing heart and a willing mind and have a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone. Here in Hebrews 7, verses 17 to 19, where it's again talking about the priesthood, it says, For it is attested of him that you are a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. For on one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness. For the law made nothing perfect. And on the other hand, there is a bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. Justin Martyr says, For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision and the Sabbath and, in short, all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were commanded you, namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts. All right, how does this pertain to the Sabbath? In the first message, we talked about Sinai, Mount Sinai, where the children of Israel came there in the wilderness and the shaking and the thundering and the voice and how what was said there should not be taken lightly. The ten commandments that God orally spoke were later written into tables of stone with God's own finger. And the fourth commandment says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. And then he references creation and says, For in six days God created heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested. A few chapters later there in Exodus, God expounded this further to Moses, and this is what he said. In chapter 31 of Exodus, verse 12, he says, Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, You shall direct the children of Israel, saying, See to it that you keep my Sabbaths, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know I am the Lord who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because this is holy for you to the Lord. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. For whoever works on it, thou shalt be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath, a holy rest to the Lord. Whoever works on the seventh day shall be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe them throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. For in six days the Lord created heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he ceased and rested. It is a sign of a perpetual covenant. God says this is a sign between me and Israel forever. There's not too much ambiguity there. We know what this means. In the first message we talked about maybe there's ambiguity about what consists of work. But even that, the scripture has some pretty plain examples. We know that gathering is work. They were not to gather manna. The man gathering sticks was killed. You were not to kindle a fire, not to start a fire. That was considered work. You were not to carry a burden. That was considered work. And if you want to know how serious this is to God, let's look at that short account in Numbers where the man was gathering sticks. It says, Now while the children of Israel were in the desert, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. So those who found him gathering wood on the Sabbath day brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation and of the children of Israel. They put him under guard because they had not decided what to do with him. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Let the man be surely put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones. So as the Lord ordered Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones. Whatever this thing is of keeping the Sabbath is not something God takes lightly. Or I should say of breaking the Sabbath. He does not take it lightly. This day is to be holy. That means it's supposed to be set apart. They were supposed to finish their work by the end of the sixth day so that on the seventh day it could be set apart as a day in which they abstain from their normal occupation. The Israelites were to walk in all these commands of the Lord and then they would be blessed. The blessings will find them, it says in Deuteronomy. You shall be blessed in the city. You shall be blessed in the country. Blessed be your ground. Blessed be your herd. Blessed be your flock. Blessed shall be your storehouses. You will lend to many and you will not borrow. You will be the head and not the tail. And you know what? It still works this way. If you put into practice these things, you get earthly blessings. If you work hard and if you are honest and if you live in a cleanly way and if you eat wholesome foods, generally speaking, you'll receive earthly blessings. It still works just like it did for Israel. But he also says this, in spite of the fact that you can work and receive all these blessings, your flocks, your herds, you'll get rich, you'll abound, he says, but don't forget me. I want you to give one-tenth of these blessings to the priests. You can keep your 90% for yourself, but I want 10% to go to the priests. And he says, I want you to take one out of seven days and I want you to stop your work. And I want you to dedicate that to me. Very, very interestingly, these things didn't apply to the Levites and the priests. The priests, who were set apart to do the Lord's work, they did not tithe and they did really not keep the Sabbath either. There were the daily offerings. Every day they brought in sheep and they killed them and they offered them up. And they offered up drink offerings and grain offerings. And on the Sabbath, in addition to the daily offering, they did more offerings. This included catching these animals, it included killing them, it included preparing them, kindling a fire, putting them on the altar. And any of you who have any experience butchering animals know that it's work. It is hard work. We start seeing that God must not be against laborious tasks on the Sabbath day. There must be something beyond that. It must be that that command, do not work, is not the end in itself. He must have a will that is greater than the command. And the prophet Isaiah starts eluding to this. In chapter 58 of Isaiah, and most of you are probably familiar with it, it's that chapter where he talks about the fast. He says, what is the fast that I desire? Is it for you to stop eating and afflicting yourselves? Is that the fast I've chosen? He says, no, the fast I've chosen is that you release the oppressed and you break every yoke and you undo the heavy burdens and the bonds of wickedness. And then at the end of that chapter, this is what he says. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasures, not speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth. I really think it's interesting how he says, don't seek your pleasures on my day. He's emphasizing in this whole chapter, Isaiah is emphasizing the spiritual and substantial value of these things. In fasting, he's saying, look, it's not so much about you guys not eating. What's really supposed to be happening is you're supposed to be forgiving. You're supposed to be releasing whoever you've got oppressed. You're supposed to be breaking the yokes of people that are under oppression. That's what's really supposed to be happening. And concerning the Sabbath, it's not so much about no work. The real thing that's supposed to be happening is that you stop from your own ways. Stop, cease from your own pleasures and from your own pursuits. In other words, we should be resting from our own works to enter into his work. Let's look at one more prophetic word in the Old Testament about the Sabbath, and it's in Psalm 95. The word Sabbath is not used here. But in Psalm 95, starting in verse 6, it says, Come, let us worship and fall down before him, and let us weep before the Lord who made us. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion. During the day of testing in the desert, where your fathers tempted me and tested me and saw my works, for forty years I was treated with contempt by that generation. And I said, they always go astray in their hearts, and they do not know my ways. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Now, the reason we know that this is a prophetic word about the Sabbath is because it was revealed to the Apostle Paul, even though the word Sabbath is not here. So, yeah, you would disagree with what part? That it's not there? Okay. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. So David here, he's making a reference to something that happened in the past. Back when God wanted to bring them into the land of Canaan, and they did not believe him. And then in his anger, he said, I swear in my wrath, they will not enter my rest. David is making reference to that while he's also prophetically saying, we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. In another psalm, David says, the Lord God has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. I want you to think about that. He made us, not we ourselves. We are his people, the sheep in his pasture. That should give us a lot of rest for our soul. God made us, right? We don't have to make ourselves. He made us the way we are. He made our gender. He made the color of our hair. He made the color of our skin. He made the color of our eyes. He decided how tall we're going to be, how many limbs we're going to have. Caleb's limbs are shorter than mine, but he made him that way because he wanted him that way. And he made us the way he wanted to make us. And then he wants us to be in his pasture. Being in God's pasture means we have green pastures and still waters and everything is supplied for us. It should be a very restful thought that he made us and we are the people of his pasture. He made everything in six days. And in one place in the scripture it says, he made it for his pleasure. And then he rested from his creative works. He rested from making things and began to work at caring for creation. And he partnered up with man in the care of his creation to spread goodness over the whole earth. And David in this psalm is saying, today, if you hear my voice, if you hear this and if you want to enter this pasture, if you want to enter this rest, today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. And what Paul writes in Hebrews about this, I think is very helpful in understanding the Sabbath. In Hebrews chapter 4, we'll read verses 1 to 11. It says, Therefore let us fear, if while a promise remains of entering his rest, any of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have good news preached to us, just as they also. But the word they heard did not profit them, because it was united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as he has said, As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has said somewhere concerning the seventh day, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again in this passage, they shall not enter my rest. Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, he again fixes a certain day, today, saying through David, after so long a time, just as had been said before, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest has himself rested from his works, as God did from his. Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience. So when should we keep the Sabbath? Today. Any day that you can call today, that day, you should keep the Sabbath. How should we keep it? We should cease from our own works. We should cease from making things for our own pleasure. And we should enter into this rest with God. And this rest does not mean no physical work. Not at all. God kept right on working ever since he created the world. Like the priests in the temple, the work of the redemption of mankind is a nonstop thing. God has been working 24-7. He doesn't slumber. He doesn't grow weary. God keeps working every day, the work of the kingdom. Did you know that Jesus says that? Jesus says that God works on the Sabbath. There's that account in John 5, where there's this man laying beside that pool of Bethesda. And he's been crippled, ill for 38 years. And he's laying beside that pool, and he's wishing to get into that pool for healing. But he never makes it in. When the waters get stirred, he never makes it in first. And so he's laying there, and Jesus comes upon him, and he sees this man, and he says, you want to be healed? And he says, yes, I want to be healed, but I never make it into the pool. And Jesus says, rise up, pick up your bed, and walk. And this man, who's been crippled for 38 years, gets up, and he picks up his bed, or his pallet, whatever it is. Some versions say pallet, some versions say bed. Some kind of a cot that he was on all these years. And he picks it up, and he takes this burden and starts walking down the street. And the Jews see it, and they say, hey, it's the Sabbath. It's not permissible for you to carry that thing. And he said, well, the guy that healed me, he told me to pick it up and carry it. And once they figured out who had healed him and who had said this, they came to Jesus accusing him. And what did Jesus say? He said, my father works hitherto, and I work. There's no mistaking this language. He is basically saying, my father is working straight through, even on the Sabbath, and I'm working too. It made the Jews even more furious. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, he was making himself equal with God. Those are words from John, okay? In case, unless John would just be trying to say what the Jews are saying, John himself says, not only did he break the Sabbath, he made himself equal with God. And this brings us to another thing that Jesus said, and we'll read this in Matthew 12. Starting in verse 1, it says, At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, Look, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath. And he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he became hungry? He and his companions, how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to eat, him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? And have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, I desire compassion and not a sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. If the showbread, which was to be holy, meaning set apart for the priests only, if it could be broken because of who David was, because of the greatness of David, if that law could be broken, or if because of the greatness of the temple and the priests, the Sabbath could be broken for that purpose, Jesus is saying there's something greater here than David or the temple. He was the very Lord of the Sabbath. He is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. It was one of those many statements that Jesus made where he injects himself into Scripture. Jesus said these many things that seem like really audacious statements. When he says things like, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. I am the resurrection. I am the bread of life. I am the word. Really? Every scribe, every rabbi has the right to expound on the Scriptures. He has the right to say, this is what the light is. This is what the way is. But no one has the right to say, the way? It's me. You want to know what the truth is? It's me. Those are just big, big statements. Here in this Matthew passage, I think this is what Jesus is doing. In fact, if you're open there to Matthew 12, remember, chapter breaks weren't there. Look at the very end of chapter 11. This was at the same time. It says it's at the same time. This is what Jesus says. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Really? On the Sabbath day? To Jews who were having a day of rest? He says, hey you, come to me if you want rest. You guys that are heavy laden, come here. I'll give you rest. My burden's light. Those were big statements. He is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus, the Son of God, he is the fulfillment of all things. He is the promised seed. He is the rock in the wilderness. He is the new lawgiver. He is the priest, the prophet, the king, the lamb, the manna. He is our feast. He is our drink offering. He is our Sabbath rest. It can't be said much clearer than how Paul says it in Colossians. No one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink or in respect to the feast, new moon, or Sabbath day. These things which are a mere shadow but the substance is Christ. Okay, I want to talk about, just briefly, talk about some of the common objections to this idea. It's one of the Ten Commandments. Are we allowed to break one and keep nine? I hope I've sufficiently covered that in contrasting the two covenants and the fading away of the old with the coming of the new. Objection number two. It's from the beginning. It's not just the Mosaic Law thing. There was this thing in the beginning where God worked six days and then rested. I hope I've sufficiently covered that with how God did not stop working. He stopped from His creative works. He stopped creating this whole thing for His pleasure and He started working on the care of redemption and the care of His creation. Objection number three. Jesus never broke the Sabbath. First of all, that's debatable. John says He did. But regardless, He is Lord of the Sabbath. He can make it. He can break it. He can change it. He can render it. He can render it useless and void and He can inject Himself into it. He's Lord of it. He can do with it whatever He wants. Objection number four. Why did Jesus say, pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath? If He was intending that we would keep the Sabbath, why did He say there in Matthew 24, I think, pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath? First, let me say we've got to be careful with that kind of reasoning. I'm not saying it's not a legitimate question. It is a legitimate question. But we have to be careful when we have an instruction and then we hear something that we say, well, why would He have said this if He meant this? People do this all the time with the thing that Jesus said about told His disciples go buy a sword. After He teaches everything about nonresistance and a lot of people say, well, if He meant that, He would not have said go buy a sword. You just have to be careful with those kind of reasonings. There may be a specific reason why Jesus said something for a specific time and we for sure can't build on silence. I'll tell you what my opinion is on why Jesus said that. He was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and He's telling the people, these are the signs that are going to happen before Jerusalem gets destroyed and you guys need to flee. But pray that your flight be not in the winter or on the Sabbath and woe to you who are pregnant at that time. It's going to be real, real, real dire times. Now, the church at Jerusalem was mostly believing Jews. By becoming believers, it doesn't mean that they immediately stopped the customs, the practices that have been ingrained in them for generations and generations and generations. They may have had the liberty to do things on the Sabbath, but it doesn't mean that their conscience allowed it. It's never saying that it's wrong for you to rest one day out of the week. It's not wrong for you to keep the dietary laws. Those things aren't wrong. We don't see the disciples going around trying to convince believing Jews that they need to quit that. What we see is them fighting to keep the believing Jews from binding Gentiles and other believers to those things. Because it's not where salvation is found. It's not where the kingdom of God is. And I think, maybe that's all for that. Objection number five, the apostles kept the Sabbath. I don't know if they always did or not. But it really doesn't change that much. For one thing, we know the apostles had a practice of not putting an unnecessary stumbling block in front of people. Paul says, when I went to the Jews, I became a Jew. When I went to the Greeks, I became a Greek. I think when Paul was ministering to the Jews, if they had a rest day, he rested. He probably ate what they ate. And he did not eat what they would not eat. When he went to the Greeks, as far as reasonably possible, he tried to adapt into their, not into their sins in no way at all, but he became a Greek. He spoke their language. He did not put an unnecessary stumbling block in front of them. And I think that's a good practice. I think like, if we would go to India and start ministering to the Hindus, and we know they keep a cow sacred, we should not go there and slaughter a cow and invite them all to our beef roast? That's not the way we do, right? That's not the way the apostles did. And I just think the believing Jews especially, they kept on keeping these things. And Jesus is telling them, like, you guys pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath. What if someone comes around here and thinks they should keep the Sabbath day? First of all, I think we should try to instruct him in the way more perfectly. If he is teaching others to keep the Sabbath day, that teaching needs to be withstood. But if he, for his conscience sake, thinks that he should keep this day just strictly for personal reasons, he thinks there is some virtue or some value that he gets personally. Let me read you a quote from Justin Martyr. This would basically be how I feel about this. I don't know that I can say it much better. But if some, through weak-mindedness, wish to observe such institutions as were given by Moses, from which they expect some virtue, but which we believe were appointed by reason of hardness of the people's hearts along with their hope in Christ, and wish to perform the eternal and natural acts of righteousness and piety, yet choose to live with the Christians and the faithful, as I said before, not inducing them either to be circumcised like themselves or to keep the Sabbath or to observe any other such ceremonies, then I hold that we ought to join ourselves to such and associate with them in all things as kinsmen and brethren. But if, trifle, I continued, some of your race, the Jews, who say they believe in Christ, compel those Gentiles who believe in this Christ to live in all respects according to the law given by Moses, or choose not to associate so intimately with them, I, in like manner, do not approve of them. I just think that's a reasonable approach that we should have, even though there's always this danger of somebody who does that to just stray away from the foundation of Christ. But, as Justin Martyr says, it's weak-mindedness, but we need to be patient with weak-minded people. I don't really plan to expound much on this, and I don't even think that I need to in this congregation, but Sunday is not the Sabbath. I grew up thinking that. I grew up being taught that. And it would be, in the broad realm of Christianity, it would be a belief that somehow the fulfillment of the Sabbath is now called the Christian Sabbath or the first day of the week. I don't think so. I don't think so at all. If you want to call this the Lord's Day, and if you want to follow the even Scripture and early Christian practice of coming together that day to break bread, okay, that's one thing. But Sunday is not the fulfillment of the Sabbath. Is your Sabbath rest a day, or is it a person? Are you going to work six days for yourself and devote one day to the worship of God, or are you going to devote every day that is called today to the work that the Father and the Son are actively engaged in? Are you going to carry your own burdens or cast them on Jesus and get in His yoke and find rest for your souls? Are you going to spend six days a week gathering to store up for yourselves, or are you going to forsake everything for the furtherance of the kingdom of God? Are you going to try to kindle your own fires, meaning create your own spirituality, or are you going to accept the fire that Jesus already kindled? The true Sabbath rest, as it already says in the Old Covenant, is a perpetual sign of having entered into the New Covenant with Christ. This is what Irenaeus says, and in Exodus God says to Moses, You shall observe my Sabbath, for it shall be a sign between me and you for your generations. But the Sabbath taught that we should continue day by day in God's service. For we have been counted, says the apostle Paul, all the day long as sheep for the slaughter. This is consecrated, that is consecrated, and ministering continually to our faith and persevering in it and abstaining from all avarice and not acquiring or possessing treasures upon her. We are a royal priesthood who are actively engaged in the work of God every day. We ought to be. But we need to be real honest with ourselves when we ask ourselves, have we entered into the Sabbath rest with the Lord in the New Covenant? Have we actually ceased from working for ourselves? If we spend our life working and physically laboring for the purpose of filling our barns with earthly treasures and laying up a financial retirement security or to use it for our own pursuits and pleasures, we haven't entered His rest at all. It doesn't matter if we have the proper understanding of the covenants and of the types and of the shadows and of what the real Sabbath is supposed to be. If we just keep laboring away for our own selves, we have not entered the Sabbath rest at all. It's like someone who gets a hold of the fact that in the Old Covenant they were supposed to tithe. You were supposed to give 10% of all these things you're blessed with. You're supposed to give a tenth of that for the use of God. And it's like someone who gets a hold of like, oh, in the New Covenant it's not that way at all. We're supposed to give it all. And then you just keep on living, living for yourself and you keep on gathering these blessings and using them for yourselves. And all that you have is an ideology. All that you have is a neat and somewhat proper ideology, but it's not the giving that is meant at all in the New Covenant. It's a dead faith. There's so much more that I was hoping in the beginning to cover in this series. The spiritual meaning of some of the dietary laws and other laws in the Torah. New wine in old wineskins and the blood that ratified the New Covenant. But time's just not going to allow for all that. I want to wrap this up. These kind of things are treasures though. And I would encourage you to dig them out. Jesus said, every scribe which is instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder and he brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. One of the early Christian writers, maybe Irenaeus, said this undoubtedly means out of the Old and the New Testament we can bring out treasures. We can bring out very, very valuable things. And a scribe that is instructed in the kingdom of God, Jesus said, will do that. The conclusions that I have. God is a covenant maker and He is a covenant keeper. He made the Old Covenant while He also promised a New Covenant. The Old Covenant were with signs. For Abraham, the sign was circumcision. Do we still need to be circumcised? Yes, but not the shadow of the circumcision which is the removing of the foreskin of the flesh, but the circumcision of the heart, the removing of the veil that blinds us. That circumcision we still need to be circumcised with. The sign for the Mosaic Covenant was the Sabbath. Do we still need to keep the Sabbath? Yes, but not the shadow of the Sabbath. Not one day out of the week, but the substance of the Sabbath. The rest in Jesus. What was delivered at Sinai when the whole earth shook and trembled and smoked and there was fire. And that which was written in stone at that time was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ and the New Covenant. And the New Covenant is not like the Old One where God takes Israel by the hand and He takes them out there and He tries to change their heart by taking them first out there. That's not the New Covenant. That's the Old Covenant. The New Covenant, He's going to start with the heart and He's going to write that new commandment into our hearts that we should love one another as I have loved you. And that glory of that new commandment so far surpasses everything in the Old Covenant that the old just fades away. It's useless. The glory of the new surpasses the glory of the old so that the old disappears or becomes obsolete as it says in Hebrews. Our Sabbath rest is for today. Every day that we can call today. And it is a rest in Christ, the only rock that cannot be shaken. I'm going to wrap up by reading the end of Hebrews 13 where it says, See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking for if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth much less will we escape who turn away from him who warns us from heaven. And his voice shook the earth then but now he has promised saying yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven. This expression yet once more denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken as of created things so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable servants with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. I just want to open it up for people to share if they want to and correct if it's needed and God bless you all. I was thinking based on what you were saying that you were showing the law of Moses that the one tribe out of the twelve the Levites were still working on the Sabbath they were doing spiritual things for God as it was given through Moses, the shadows. And then here Peter tells us that all of spiritual Israel are priests. He says in 1 Peter 2 verse 4 Coming to him as a living stone rejected indeed by men but chosen by God and precious you all also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house. So we individually collectively are the temple and yet he goes on to say that we are a holy priesthood. So we're also individually priests in this temple that we collectively make up which is the body of Christ as Paul tells us to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God. So as you showed the priests do the work in the temple on the Sabbath and now, that was the shadow now the fulfillment is we are priests doing the work in the temple which is the family of God on the Sabbath which is 24-7 as I would understand it. And one other thing I guess I wanted to share was I think it's really excellent the two writings that we have from Irenaeus one of them is in the Antionicine Fathers against heresies and then the other one was found afterwards after it was published in the mid-1800s. So this one here in chapter 96 it says he's going through all these explanations of all these shadows and prophecies and things about Christ in the Old Testament and he brings it to a bear as he's coming to a conclusion. He says, this is chapter 96 Wherefore also we need not the law as a tutor. Behold, with the Father we speak and in His presence we stand. Having been children in malice but now having grown up strong in all righteousness and soberness. So no longer shall the law say do not commit adultery to him who has no desire at all for another man's wife or thou shalt not kill to him who has put away from himself all anger and all enmity towards others. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's field or ox or donkey to those who have no care at all for earthly things but store up the heavenly fruits. Nor an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth to him who counts no man his enemy but all men his neighbors and therefore cannot stretch out his hand at all for vengeance. It will not require tithes of him who consecrates all possessions to God leaving father and mother and all his kindred and following the word of God. Therefore there will be no command to remain idle for one day of rest to him who perpetually keeps Sabbath. That is to say who is the temple of God which is man's body who does service to God and every hour works righteousness. I think that's a really great explanation as well. Thank you Brother Duane for three excellent blessings. They were all blessings and learned some new things and refreshed and bless you for expounding or admonishing and warning us about the Sabbath. Just like Paul did to Galatians who bewitched you. You've fallen from grace. You're going to circumcise. Well, you're lost. You're lost. You're gone. Maybe if I'm taking this one out of context brothers can help me. In 2 Peter 3 verse 16 Peter says that a lot of people they wrangle over words and they teach things untaught and unstable to their own destruction. And I believe that would be all in line with circumcision and the Sabbath. If you're going to teach that you're going to spiritual adultery. Thanks Brother Duane. Excellent lessons. The Lord be magnified. As you shared Justin Martyr's take there, that's probably kind of the stand I have taken for a long time. If somebody has a personal conviction, they need to do one of these things and he's not going around teaching others that salvation lies here. But there was one instance when the religious of the day were offended that a person was helped on the Sabbath. And the Lord became angry about that. And so, I would just if you have these convictions and you find a blessing in them, praise the Lord, but don't circumvent the greater blessing of helping another on the Sabbath. That's a bigger blessing. That's a better way. So, if there are people that feel the need to those things for their blessing, you made a good point. The disciples didn't go around making a big issue out of these things for people who had carried them from their previous religious settings until they started trying to force them on others and so on. So, may the Lord give us grace and help us to be watchful in these ways and capture the greater blessing of the New Covenant Sabbath of blessing wherever we can no matter what day it is. Don't let your personal conviction Sabbath get in the way of doing good ever. The Lord was very displeased with those who would have had it that way. It kind of turned on themselves because if it would have been an ox and a well or something, they would have broke their Sabbath to deal with that. But when somebody was healed, then there was a problem. So, may the Lord help us view these things rightly and not be a stumbling block to anyone. I, too, am thankful for both messages. Even before this morning when I was thinking a little bit about Proverbs 21:3, I thought, well, surely, there's some connection here between to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. I think I see a connection. I don't know if anybody else does. Like, if we apply what we heard today, I think it would cover this. At least some of it. I'm not saying all of it. But I think I see a very good start for sure. So, may the Lord bless us. Yeah, Duane, I don't have anything to add, but I sure appreciated those three messages. I found them instructional and maybe a better understanding of the separation of covenants and yet how some of the underlying principles blend together is still, I guess, a fairly recent thing for me to have gotten a better grasp of. And I just really appreciate it. And the Sabbath in particular is something that, it'd be one of those things that seemed to carry over from maybe my evangelical days as something taught that we ought to do, ought to have a rest on the Sabbath, ought to keep it, ought to do it on the day. Maybe the day of the week is not so important anymore, but ought to keep a day of special rest. But I find that, especially your challenge at the end of really entering into the true Sabbath, resting from creative works, resting from selfish endeavors is a huge challenge compared to not working on a certain day. Seems like the Sabbath in particular is something that Jesus really wanted to drive home to the point where he violated it. I know you said, John said, specifically that he violated the Sabbath, but it seems to me like Jesus almost went out of his way to do it on multiple occasions. Particularly, I guess, my favorite time that he made people angry on the Sabbath is the man with the withered hand because in one of the accounts it says specifically that he was angry at their silence when they couldn't even answer a simple question about wouldn't it be right to do good on the Sabbath to take life or to make somebody whole. Anyway, I just thoroughly appreciated all three messages. Praise God. Yeah, I think I wanted to share my opinion. I would differ with the way the traditional way of translating this passage in, let's see, was it John 5, was it? Where they say that Jesus broke the Sabbath. The word doesn't mean break. It means loose. And in the Sermon on the Mount, it's not a typical way, but there is one occasion where it seems like it's using the same word in Matthew chapter 5 where it says if anyone looses, I forget what command he says, and he goes on and he talks in a way, actually maybe I could bring it up, but talks in a way where it would not be good for this man to loose this command. I forget what it was. He says this in the Sermon on the Mount. So it's usually, but that's not the typical word that's used when you're talking about breaking commandments. Usually it's a word that would probably be, or a lot of times be translated as transgress or trespass, a command as opposed to, if somebody's not talking about a command, somebody might use different words to say doing evil, different types of verbs for doing evil or working unrighteousness or something, whatever. But when you're talking about a command, typically it's transgress or trespass. This is what I think is happening. In Mark chapter 7, there's a passage where, in fact I think I got it up on my phone, I could read it, where Jesus is correcting the, hold on one second, correcting the experts in the law that they're understanding something wrongly with regard to food laws. And as he says what he says, he ends up talking about it and it says, thus purifying all foods. So by Jesus making this statement, just in this conversational exchange, he actually was annulling something and legislating something. Doing away with the shadow and putting something in place for the fulfillment of that. Similarly here, this idea of loose, I'll give you one example of how it could be used. Like we would say, like John the Baptist said that he would not be worthy of loosening the shoestrings on the sandals of Jesus. Same exact verb, right? So it's the opposite of binding something on someone versus loosening. And so when Jesus, when this says, when John says that he loosened, not broke, loosened, using this same verb, loosened the Sabbath, I understand that similar in Mark 7. That he actually was legislating and when he made that statement, he was actually loosening the Sabbath foreshadowing and binding the fulfillment and basically fulfilling it. I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't see it, because I know we all struggle with the idea, wait a minute, did Jesus transgress the law? Then how could he be the pure lamb of God and take away the sin of the world and go to the cross? It makes no sense. And I think the most reasonable understanding of use of that verb is that he's loosening the old, just like he did in Mark 7 about thus purifying all foods and stuff. I was thinking about that word loose and I remember, I think it was in, I was asking Yolanda about the word loose in Spanish and she said it meant light. And I said well, maybe in the same example it could represent bringing light into a dark situation. You know, Jesus was shedding light on this established principle. I think you're taking the Spanish word loose, which means light. Yeah. The English word loose. There's two different languages. I know that, but it could be very similar. Yeah, but there's two different languages. I understand that. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Yeah, I just want to say amen to this message and the last two of the whole series and I appreciate you doing this and the effort that you put into it. And I was sitting in pretty comfortable agreement until we were challenged about whether we just understand the Sabbath as an ideology or whether we really have entered that Sabbath. So that's, for me that's, it's not, I mean the whole idea is not new, but for me that's where, that's where the, where the challenge is that I have to examine myself and I certainly want to do that. Anyway, God bless. Yes, I want to give my amen just in a very, very hearty way I guess. Really just appreciate the efforts. I like how the, seeing what Norman had to say kind of flows with the Sabbath rest that we heard of and some experiences I've had in the past just kind of came back to my mind being a young boy growing up under a certain influence that got you, I mean I never just heard my parents say we're keeping the Sabbath, but still direction was given in that way. Like Saturday night comes around and it, not always, but sometimes it was a flurry of events of just getting everything precise, lined out, brush and polish your suit, your shoes and get your horse and get everything just nice and ready and because of the day that we can't do that and then we're really ready to rest on that day, but then still that day was not really that much of a day of rest when you think about things spiritually. A little bit my experience, but so yeah, so I liked how the two brother's thoughts flow together and having rest, true peace of mind. Might sound like I'm speaking like I got it now, but I don't. I still have struggles in the area of finding a true rest, just on a daily basis, just finding confidence in going forward. It's just a hard thing to walk this narrow path. Appreciate the challenge at the end how that we are. I think Norman kind of covered my thoughts there. We're really comfortable up to this point of being challenged on keeping the true Sabbath rest and are we? Am I doing this in all sincerity and in truth? And so I do appreciate that. I wanted to, well, I guess it'd be something like just let myself be stretched in those areas and be more about focusing on the, okay, I can easily agree with all of the points were made good and right and I can just easily agree with that, but I want to take it to heart how we are supposed to keep the Sabbath as much as we're supposed to be circumcised with the true circumcision from God, not the shadow, but so I want to let those things be a challenge for me and work them out. Praise God. Yeah, Brother Dwayne, I thought that was excellent. Thank you for your labors in that. God bless you for that. Also, I was definitely challenged as well, what Otley and Norman just brought up there. That's a good challenge for us to take heed to. I want to remind us what Paul writes here in Philippians. Speaking of people that would try to force us to keep this old law, he says, Beware of these dogs. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the concision. You know, these people that try to force you to keep this old covenant alive. You know, John, the book of John says that Jesus was the word made flesh. He was the Torah made flesh. He was the law made flesh. And he was born under the law. He walked in it. He was it. He was a representation of it. And he was the fulfillment of it. And what happened to him, he was the old covenant. And it was nailed to the cross and died. Just like Romans 7 says, A wife is bound by that law of her husband as long as he's alive. Well, that husband has been dead, was crucified and dead. Just like the Scriptures say that we are now dead to the law, that we can be married to another, which was Christ, which is Christ. Christ resurrected the new covenant. And there's one more representation that I just love. You know, several years ago, Katie asked me, Dad, why was Jesus baptized? Well, again, he was this old covenant in the flesh. And Jesus being baptized, it's not because he had sin. His baptism is a representation of this old husband, this old covenant being put to death and a new one being resurrected. And that we can be with this new Savior, Jesus. That's one of my favorites. But thank you very much. Praise the Lord. Yeah, I would like to say amen, Dwayne. Thank you for your labors on this. I was really blessed today by it. Like Aaron was saying, woe to them who tell people you have to keep this old covenant Sabbath. And I think that's so true because they're misleading people to what it really is. So now we can say, oh, you do keep the Sabbath, man, but it's so much better. Look, it's every day, like when we truly believe we're truly born again, like we have this rest. Like Jesus said, he that eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood will live forever. So it's like by faith on them words, by moving in righteousness, like there's this rest that for the soul, not the peace that the world gives, but like this eternal peace is really, oh, it's so magnificent. I think it overwhelms the heart. You know, like it's like, oh, like God is so wonderful. It's like, I don't know how to explain it. He's so wonderful. It just overwhelms the heart. And I was very blessed. So God bless you guys. Yeah, I just had the idea that like people today like not getting it. Like, oh, what a blessing we can rest. Oh, one day a week, oh, we get to rest. But it was a burden. Like, oh my, I got this to do. I got this to do. Like, how am I going to get ahead? Like I can't work today. Like, man, that's a whole day wasted. Like it was a tax for them. Like every day they could build their own kingdom, but that day, oh, they couldn't get ahead that day. Just like the 10%. Like it was a tax. Like it was taxing. And like, I'm not going to try to think of other examples, but like I think there's lots of ways in which the old covenant, oh, circumcision, like not a blessing. Like there was ways that God taxed his people and the new covenant were like free. We're free of that. There's no more, not just like we're free of the tax, but we're free of the whole monetary system, so to speak. I had this idea that's pretty basic, but it'd be like if every day we get up in the morning and we play Monopoly all day long and there's rules and you land in a certain spot, you got to pay money. And if you buy this thing and you can get ahead and every day you're trying to win Monopoly, win Monopoly. And then one day this guy comes along and he's like, okay, stop. Let's go outside. And it's like real life. And you're like, but what about Monopoly money? Like it was a game. Like it was, I was trying to teach you some lessons, but it's not real. Like it's, you're done with that stuff. Like we're not, you're not trying to build your kingdom anymore. You're not trying to build your bank account anymore. That stuff, it's all, like if we have the right mindset, like money is just this stuff and a house is just, it's all just temporary. It's all just like this little phase that God had them, this phase that he had them in is I think about like a temporary sort of game to teach lessons. And if we think of it that way, it'd be like, the misunderstanding of that, the place of the old covenant, like how silly it seems like to keep the covenant. It'd be like, it'd be like me insisting that, no, I'm supposed to collect $200 when I pass go and be like, man, grow up. Like that was just a game. Like we're done with that. Like this is, this is real life. Caring about, caring about monopoly money, like look how much monopoly money I have. Like a little child might come up and like, look at all my monopoly dollars. And you'd be like, that's cute. But like, it's a, in the real world, it has no value. And in God's world, you know, money, that's the story of the unjust servant. Like the guy just wrote off debts because that wasn't really value. What was really value was the relationships that he was building with these people that he was writing off their debts. Another thing about, when you said the thief, like the law can just bring him to this even place. But what exceeds that is when, is when we start giving, like really, really just giving our all. And you can almost depict it as a man that like, like just sets out to look for people to help. Like, like just look for homeless. Like he's in his car, driving around. And man, where are these homeless people? Someone, surely someone needs to hear about the Lord. Just searching for people to help. Yeah, I just had a thought. I appreciate what Buddy was saying because that kind of triggered some thoughts too. Yeah, I mean, I spent two years in Israel where every Friday, early afternoon, one, two o'clock, everything starts shutting down. Now, of course, I wasn't observing Shabbat as a lot of the religious people were there in Jerusalem. but you can't, you know, if you need to go shopping, you can't do anything. You're like handcuffed. And it made me think, partly what Buddy was saying, is just how many people for, you know, 1,500 years, at least since the time of Moses up until the time of Jesus, to where their neighbor on, on Sabbath, on Shabbat said, hey, could you help me with such and such? Did this happen? No, no, I can't, we can't work on Sabbath, sorry. So, there was this shutting down of doing good and helping your neighbor, which is the fulfillment of the law on this day. And I'm sure how much God saw that. That probably triggered a lot of what he said through the prophet Isaiah in chapter one. He starts off, all these works of the law, fastings, sacrifices, circumcision, all these ordinances, and then he picks it up and he really gives light to it as Dwayne brought out in chapter 58. He's like, is this the kind of fast that I want you to do? Where you, you know, let's see, let me read it actually. It's really good. And then he goes on and he ends up, starts referring to the Sabbath as well. He said, why have we fasted? They say, and you have not seen. They're saying this to the Lord. Why have we afflicted our souls? You don't take notice. In fact, in the day of your fast, you find pleasure and exploit all the labors. That's what he says further down with the Sabbath. He's like, stop doing your own pleasures. And anyway, verse four, indeed you fast for strife and debate. So you're fasting so you can apparently get, you know, irritated because of lack of food and you're in strife and debate with each other and the fists of wickedness you bring on each other. You will not fast as you do this day to make your voice heard on high. In other words, you're not going to be heard. I'm not going to hear your prayers when you're being this way towards each other. Even though you're being idle or, you know, when you're fasting and doing without food, you think you're really doing something awesome. Is it a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this day a fast, an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen to loose, there's that word, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring into your house the poor who are cast out? When you see the naked, then you cover him and hide yourself from your own flesh? In other words, your fellow Israelites, you're hiding from them? They have need? Kind of like John says in 1 John, you see your brother in need and you say, hey, go well, be warm, well fed. You don't do anything to help him? How can the love of God be in you? That's what he's saying here. And he's showing clearly, this is not the fasting. And further down, this is not the Sabbath that I want. So I'm just thinking about, probably from my own experience in Israel, I'm sure people, it occurred to me while I was in Israel, I'd never thought of this before, how ridiculous, I know I've shared this with you all before, I'll say it again, how ridiculous it is for somebody to think that God was saying, one day a week, I want you to stop keeping the law, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. Don't keep the law on the Sabbath. I mean, what a ridiculous interpretation of him saying, do no work. So anyway. I did have a few more thoughts. I wanted to emphasize a little more on, or bring to our attention, a little more the idea of, I guess I got a little glimpse of like the will of God and the whole law was not, I forget how it got described now, and Buddy kind of alluded to that too and it made me think that this is very important that we get a hold of the real thing, what the will of God is, and not get bogged down in keeping the laws, even though those laws were for a time, but to be free. That was the other thing, like free to what? Free to serve Christ. Free to walk in His light and free to, or free from the law to do the will of the Father. I'm not sure if I'm getting that together, but another thing I've been thinking about was Paul kept the Sabbath perhaps, but in Acts 18, it just sounds like he was very busy. Every Sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks. Like every Sabbath he was just arguing. I don't know, maybe you all don't get tired of arguing, but it makes me very tired. It's hard work. Anyways, let's take advantage of these things. I think that's what Paul was doing. The blood of Jesus was purified. Peace, perfect peace, find only peace, friend. You know where the peace has led to, friend. Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows turning round, on Jesus, who took up the compass round. Peace, perfect peace, with love was far away, in Jesus' keeping we are safe and made. Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown, Jesus we know and He is on the throne. Peace, perfect peace, there shall reign just and right, Jesus Christ, and Christians all in time. Filled with guilty heart, first struggled to just ease, and Jesus, Father to confer, perfect peace. Pray that nevermore the gateways try to enter therein to, leave your flesh upon the gate, for the sanctified and true, press onward the prize and calling, things forgiven which are behind, pearls of greatest price, our promise, Jesus, see and you'll find. Lay aside each weight that hinders, on yourself both night and day, stride with prayer and prayer and crying, don't be fearful or afraid, be ye strong and stride with courage, though the devil and his foes, seem so many yet remember, they with us are still the most. Be ye zealous, O dear brothers, be your first love kindled bright, let your single heart look bright on, let it not turn left or right, Be ye zealous, O dear sisters, though the world despises you, we by meat and waters, found of sweet God's beauty, shining through. The love of God is greater power, there's no more pen can ever tell, it goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty bear of hell prepared, God gave his Son to win, his erring child he reconciled, and pardoned from his sin. The love of God, our rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore endure, the saints and angels' song, When holy times shall pass away, and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, when man new here begins to pray, on rocks and hills and mountains tall, God's love so sure, shall still endure, all measureless and strong, redeeming grace, pure and great, the saints and angels' song. The love of God, our rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore endure, the saints and angels' song. When we leave the ocean bill, and where the skies of parchment lay, where every star on earth a quill, and every man a scribe a train, to write the love of God above, would any ocean cry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, the stretch from sky to sky. The love of God, our rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore endure, the saints and angels' song.