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Transcript

Well, good morning, brethren and sisters. This week we hope to look at a few excursions into some areas of some of the most beautiful pieces of divine ethics we could ever perceive of. As we do so, I think we will find that perhaps there is a great deal more, historically, to the work of God amongst His people than perhaps at other times we might have given credit for. Hopefully all of us are going to learn something of that nature, but basically what we want to do this week is look at the area where law came in relation to Israel, to the people of God, and see how that law as a system of divine ethics has continued down through generations of time, and is just as applicable to us today as a system of divine ethics. To put us back in the context of law, law is itself a restraint made by a power outside man which extraneously operates on him to control his behavior before himself and in God's law before God. Therefore, law itself is something which takes on the meaning of God's presence, it's God's revelation, and a divine revelation is a revelation of God that He gives to mankind which is over and above anything that we might tend to see of God by reasoning. The child that brings into you the small flower and says, now here, mummy, is the evidence of God. God made that flower. That's very true, God did make that flower, but you see in that flower is the evidence of a divine being, a being that is able to create in the uniformity of the nature of creation itself a great deal of dove tanning in where everything is interrelated together for its existence. So if that flower doesn't appear in that field, neither would mankind walk there on. That's the evidence of God we might say, everything of which we have experienced, the whole panoply of space to the vast nebulae of society beyond the stars, whatever that society is, it is all part of the evidence of God and we can reach that by reasoning, by observing, by studying and questioning. We can see the evidence of God, but you see a divine revelation is that which is above and over that which is otherwise seen by reason. It is a divine word of God's revelation to us of what He is and what He wants to do with us and the relationship that we might otherwise experience with Him. These things are vitally important. Now in looking at law and the coming of law, we obviously take our attention back to man's first dealings with God or to put it the right way around, God's first dealings with man. When God created man, He created him for His pleasure. The Father wanted to see a great deal of pleasure in His creation. He made before Him some human beings who are described as being in His likeness and in His image, where the animals of the earth were never so described in that language. The likeness of God in Genesis 1 and verse 26 tells us that man is made in the image in the sense of the physical appearance of God, therefore man walks as an upright creature. He has a head elevated above any other part of His being, so His head is at the top. Of animals that is not necessarily so. Mankind is also made in the likeness of God and that describes mankind as a creature with a mental affinity with God. He thinks like God can think. He has a sense of a direction of mentality that refers Himself to His God. He has a relationship possibility with His God where no animal can relate to God. But you see, man's likeness before God is much greater than just thinking like God. After all, we can refer to the serpent in Eden, can't we? We can refer to a dialogue that took place where the serpent himself says, well, God knows that when thou eatest of this fruit, thou shall be like the Elohim, you'll be like the angels. That wasn't a false statement, it was very true. The serpent was able to reason upon many aspects of the laws of God that he, the particular law of God he gave to Adam and Eve. But this creature was somewhat limited. Because it was an animal, because it was not made in the likeness of God, this animal was totally unable to reason in the sense of divine morality. And that was the difference. So the animal had an ability to think, a limited ability to rationalize, and some scope to be able to make a discovery of its observations. But the animal possessed no morality. The animal was therefore called an amoral creature. It is a creature with whom morality has no association whatsoever. In this serpent, we see the development of an animal trying to enter into God's worlds. And we see the disaster, of course, of mankind accepting the reasoning of this animal. Now, when we look at creation, we see God's dealings with mankind. We see that though God made mankind for his pleasure, and though man was supposed to be a manifestation of kinds of God, one of his children in a sense, made in the image and likeness of God, he was meant to copy God. He was meant to be a reproduction of a limited extent of what God is. So man possessed an ability that no other animal possessed. He also possessed the possibilities that no other animal possessed. That was that there was a tree in the midst of that garden also that was called the Tree of Lives, and that tree could confer immortality upon Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve had sins, in order to stop them, to prevent them from going forth and eating of the Tree of Life and living forever, therefore the Elohim sent him out of the garden. That was a possibility that did not rest there for the snake. Though the snake knew, I believe, that the possibility of doing so. God gave to Adam and Eve commandments, but he gave none unto the animals. Again, the reasons for this relate precisely to the ability and the morality within the creature to be able to absorb the divine commandments, to understand what it meant, and to become morally related to it in judgment. Well, we know what happened in Genesis. Of course, the serpent had reasoned unto Eve, particularly that she should partake of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because in this sense, she would then become like the Elohim, like the gods, knowing good and evil. Well, Eve was acted upon by her own desires. These desires became inflamed to lawlessness, and so she saw that the tree was good, that she would eat of this tree, and it would be pleasant to the eyes, and that it would make her wise. And so we find the entrance of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life clearly into the world of Eve. When she partook of the tree, of course, she then defiled her conscience before her gods. And Adam likewise, with a sense of shame upon him, feeling exposed as he was, made naked by the act, he seeks to cover it with the fig leaf. The fig leaf, through scripture, yes, it does represent Israel in some ways, but it also represents the covering up of something that doesn't exist. The fig leaf was that which makes a nice display on the outside, indicating, yes, beyond those leaves is fruit, and you go to the fruit, you go to the tree, you part the leaves, and there's no fruit. That is hypocrisy. That is guile. That is deceit, and that is sin. So Adam and Eve, in order to try from their own fictitious creation to avoid the shame that they had exposed before God, they sought to cover up. They sought to cover up, but God was able to expose the cover up. Well, when Adam and Eve had taken of this tree, the Lord God had walked in the garden in the cool of the evening, and so the Lord says unto man, Who told thee thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And so the man, in his mentality, he immediately says to the Elohim, to the angels before him, The woman which thou gavest to me with me, she gave me of this tree, and I ate it. Now we notice a change in mankind, an unfortunate change. This change has brought about a defiled conscience where man now uses guile to cover his sin. So man now blames God, implying unto God that he had something to do with his own sin. He says to the woman that you gave unto me, and so the Father goes through the angels now to the woman, and says to the woman, Well, why have you done this? And she passes the buck down the line and says, Well, the serpent, he beguiled me. He caused me to do this. And so the Lord God goes to the serpent in verse 14, And unto the serpent he said, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou, etc., etc. Now you'll notice the difference is this, that whilst the Lord God asked the question of Adam, Why have you done this? He asked the same question of Eve, Why have you done this? But he didn't ask the snake any questions, did he? A snake cannot account for sin. A snake is outside reproach of sin. A snake is a beast of the field. A snake has no moral consciousness. It has no accountability before God. You don't ask a snake any questions. You don't go out to the backyard and ask your dog why he took the turkey off the table. At least if you do, you don't expect him to explain the conditions of his sin. You see, animals cannot accounts for what they do. They are amoral creatures, but not so with mankind. And that's why to mankind, he is given laws, he is given the mind of God, he is given responsibilities that animals don't have. And of course, with those laws and responsibilities, come inestimable privileges that animals could never share. So we do have responsibilities and we have privileges, but above all, brethren and sisters, we have the possibility of knowing our Creator. Not only knowing Him, but understanding Him, and not only understanding Him, but becoming a part of Him. So not only having life, but having it more abundantly. That's what's offered to us and offered to no other living species upon this earth. So clearly, brethren and sisters, we have some very dramatic, some very wonderful principles. They all tell us about God. What He thinks, what He does, why He does it. And if therefore the character of God is so revealed before us, of His infinite greatness and majesty, if we look at His nature as being a God who has within Himself great mercy, long suffering and tender love towards His people, but yet will not forgive iniquity, He will not feel indifferent to man's sin, then what we are looking at is the being of Creator, the being as the Creator that made us in His likeness and image, and therefore tells us what we can become like God. And that is a very unique being. Well, God only asked one thing of Adam and Eve. He placed him in the garden to till it. He placed them there not to pull out the weeds and the briars. They weren't there, but He placed them there to organize the garden. He placed him there to be able to manage the affairs of that garden. He was to tend it. He was to be responsible for that garden. He had a management responsibility over fauna and flora alike. It was His domain. They all were within His grasp, within His control. But man, he was within God's control. And therefore God had to demonstrate this to him. And so before him He says in verse 16 of chapter 2 of Genesis, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat of it, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Now this is the only commandment of which we have knowledge concerning the which God gave unto His people. There was only one commandment. Do not eat of the tree. Now you'll notice that when the servant comes unto the woman, the woman answers the servant in the light of this particular law, and the woman said, Yes, well, we may eat of every tree in the garden. But in verse 3 of chapter 3, she says, But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden of God, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. I didn't read in verse 17 where God said, Thou shalt not touch it. The law was, Thou shalt not eat it. But Eve added, Neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. What's the addition for? Well, that addition, brethren and sisters, is most important. You see, that shows perception of the law. And I believe Eve obtained that perception because of her communication with Adam. And because Adam was able to say to his wife, Here is the threat of death before us. We must realize that that tree represents everything that we must totally avoid. Therefore, don't stroke the fruit or the leaves. Don't go near it. Don't flirt with death. Don't touch it. Because if you touch it, it's probable you will eat it. That is good counsel, isn't it? It wasn't part of the law which we read in verse 17 of the second chapter, but it was good counsel. And it was counsel that illustrated that here was a joint perception of the meaning of this law and how, in fact, this law itself must have created in Adam particularly a great avoidance path before him. Don't go near it. Of all the other trees we can freely eat. Well, without going into the details of the events that surround Eden, the tree of life and everything else there, what we can see is this, that here was God giving to mankind a law. Mankind without that law would have no opportunity of developing his senses to understand his God, to manifest his God, and above all, to love his God. Now, many people raise the question, well, okay, we all sin and die today because Adam and Eve sinned and died. But why, why when God possesses the capacity, didn't he not make creatures that could not fail, that could not sin? Why didn't he make us robots, robots that can go forth and manifest his will wherever it might be? Why did he give us the propensity to sin? Why give to us something that God could have avoided bringing into his own worlds? Well, it's rather like this. Would you like to go to young Johnny or Jennifer of the morning and say, time to get up, kids. So what you do is go over to their bed and you plug in a new battery, you wind up the position, put in daily morning program, beep, beep, beep, beep, right, clean your teeth, get dressed, have breakfast, but above all, give me a kiss on my cheek before you leave for school in the morning. Would you like that kind of child to do that? Would we really like our children to simply be robot, organized computers? What would you get out of that? As parents, what would I get out of it? Okay, I'd have another toy, wouldn't I? When the batteries wear out, you put another battery in. Some toys today, they change hands that quick that you can't even get the battery out, you buy a new toy. You see, that is what animation is, where man makes it, where it cannot manifest him. It cannot show him love. It cannot reflect to him his own being and look at our own children as much as we love them. We look at them and we see characteristics, some of which we don't like because that's me, but nevertheless, we see some things in them we love and we see the character of its parents coming out. We see a genetic reproduction of a loving human being that we now have the responsibility to organize, to train, and to manage until they become discretion of adults themselves. We wouldn't want it any other way, would we, parents? Now, if you've got that, if you have the value of that, you also have the problem of the cookie jar being stolen upon when you don't want it stolen from. So we all have to face the fact that there will be aberrations in the life of a child in which its growth to maturity will obviously illustrate also the potential for error. And whilst it is very true our potential for error and our children's potential for error is much, much greater than what Adam and Eve's were at creation, nevertheless, the principle is the same. We can fail, but within ourselves, we want our children to love us because of what comes spontaneously from within them towards us as the feeding back of what we have given to them. To me, the greatest advantage that I have with my children is to see that they do what I want, not because they know that the stick will come out of the joints, but because, more importantly, they don't want to court my disfavor with them. And that's very important to me, very important. That stick that I used that has a little problem written on it, foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. For the rod of correction shall drive it far from him, you see, and the child must go and get the stick and bring it and read it out. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. You see, it gives us some sort of license, doesn't it? It gives us the ability to be able to explain to that child why that stick has to be used. But I mean, I hope I wouldn't have to do that to an 18-year-old. In fact, then forget it, he'd beat me up. But the point is what the stick is for is to condition the child's thinking, to see that by the reward and the punishment structure of law and order in the households, the child can grow to appreciate new dimensions of being. And what that is, is love and responsibility. Those two things you never create in robots, and we will never create that in our children unless we start very young with teaching them same kind of things that God has taught us. So the father did not want an Adam or an Eve that did not possess the capacity to love him as a father. So he had to give them the volition, the free choice, the exercising of the mind to grow on his words or to turn the other way. And of course, it was a very sad moment to God when he turned the other way. But then the Lord, the Lord had to deal with this problem. What was he now to do with his erring children? And to whom he had given a commandment and saying that in the day thou eatest, then dying thou shalt end in death. What was he to do? Well, we could look at three possibilities. God could have said, well, mankind has sinned against me. It's all gone wrong. He didn't do what I asked him to do. So I'll obliterate the whole species and I'm going to start again. Now he could have done that on the basis of righteousness, because he told Adam and Eve, you will die as a result of that sin. He could have brought death then and there and expunged the existence of that whole creation, wiped it out, brought the earth full of water, covering the face of the deep once more and said, I'll start again. If he took that option, there might be two problems with it. Firstly, there was no certainty with God that had he started the whole thing over again, the same thing would not happen again. He had to leave that possibility open. Secondly, to have done so would have shown a side of Yahweh, which we do understand he is a wrathful God. Yes, in the sense that he punishes sinners. But he also has mercy. He also has love and he also has wisdom. And he took the option to use wisdom and love and mercy. But yet there was another option open that also could have been taken. And that was to say, well, poor Adam, he didn't really want to do this. Eve was the one who was deceived and she therefore appealed to his emotions. And therefore I'll have to admit really, it was a very hard thing. And in fact, if they had had a different circumstance, they might have been quite okay. And therefore I'll just forgive them for this once. And let's pretend it never happens. But what about that option? Isn't that full of love, full of mercy, full of forgiveness, full of kindness? Well, I think it might tend to show to us a side of God that we wouldn't like. God said, in the day thou eatest, thou shall start to die. Had he not done that, then what about God saying today, now if we serve the Father today, if we give to him the praise and the honor that he deserves, if we seek the way of life through Christ Jesus and seek to model and pattern our lives upon his example today, if we seek this, then we come to the judgment seat and the Lord says, oh, sorry, I've just changed my mind. That would be God in falsity, wouldn't it? We couldn't trust him. We couldn't trust him to do what he says. So likewise, if he says something and he changes it, can we trust him? There must be trust as well as love and mercy and kindness. So we look at God again. Yes, he can provide love, mercy, and kindness, but in such a way that he will not show weakness, inconsistency, or falsehood, and that is very, very important. So he was a God that had to somehow find a way around a problem, but in which his justice, his mercy, and his love would be all pervading. So what did he do? In the process of time, he illustrated before Adam and Eve that this dying phase would end in death. That is very true, but that death itself does not have to be permanent, and here he adds something additional to what was given to mankind in the beginning. He didn't say in his law to mankind here that in that day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, but you don't have to stay dead. That wasn't part of the law, was it? The law only condemns. The law does not give life, and here God now exercises the possibility of saying now if you would appreciate Adam and Eve, that within your life you must now organize your thinking to acknowledge a principle, and in your lives live by that principle, so that now you're to spend the rest of your days crucifying the source of your sin, then I will acknowledge in my kindness to you that if you strive to do that, I will make up the difference between your desire and your weakness, and then God could change the outcome of the situation. So God enforced his law. All sin is punishable by death, but before Adam, before he left that garden, he took hold of Adam, and he gave to him coats of skins, and he clothed them. The skins, of course, represented the slaying of the animal, and the covering of the man represented the blood of the slaying of that animal, and if we want to know what animal it is, I think we need to look a commentary on this so far as the Greek scriptures are concerned, which comments that this was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It was a lamb. It was a typical lamb. It was a lamb by whose offering sin might be covered and appearance and acceptance before God might become possible. Therefore, the slaying became a typical manifestation of divine salvation. Adam had to acknowledge that all his life, and in the hope of that, there was the hope of eternal life. Of course, down the line, God had to bring about the great antitypical lamb, the one who would, as God's own son, as the beginning of a new creation, who as a new son of God, was able to change the course of history and bring into being the possibility of a new kind of race of people, a race of people that would not live after the example of Adam's sin, but a race of people that would follow after the great spiritual ambitions of the other son, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, from the terrible outcome of the curse in Eden, mankind went out, the man to till the grounds that through the sweat of his brow, in the rooting out of thorn and briar, he might bring forth fruit by which he would live. And the woman? The woman whose propagation would now become a somewhat laborious experience, thus started to bring children into this world, which she had to seek a great deal of preoccupation with when those children are young. She must nurture the home, feed those children, organize those children, and assist in the great work of the domestic program in which the husband also places his portion into. Now we have a world, a world which is realistically related to sin, a world where death is down the line for each one of us, a world where we become the victims of foolishness, our foolishness, someone else's foolishness, a world where we know sin by experience, where we get to know the ups and downs of life and the vicissitudes which bring upon us great sorrow and yet interspersed with moments of great joy. That is real life. And real life is the fact that there's an awful lot of us here. Mankind, through the woman giving birth to the child, started to propagate upon the face of the earth. And thus mankind grew as a society of a new kind of animal, an animal, though in which was morality and moral consciousness, there was also the inevitability of sin. God didn't make us that way. That was a change. Now with sin being so inevitable, where we would sin against each other and sin against God, that we have a new dimension of control that must be carefully exercised. Take for instance Joseph. Joseph down in Egypt is sent upon by Potiphar's wife. Now is an occasion where Joseph as a young man of the age of 17 years must make a decision my flesh yields this way as a 17 year old, but God's principles are more important. How can I do this sin against my master and sin against God? You see we sin in two directions. The victim of our sin is the neighbors and God before whom all sin is a travesty of the relationship we might otherwise have with him. So here is mankind. But mankind did not have a great deal of laws to start with. There was no law of Moses until well down the line of man's history. So what about before the law of Moses came? There was no law? Well we do have an idea that there is some kind of law. I think if we look for a moment at Genesis 26 we can see that here there was restraint exercised upon mankind. Look at Abraham here. I think it's in verse 5. Verse 4, I will make thy seed multiply as the stars of heaven and I will give unto thy seed these countries and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, my laws. All of them are in there. Now how can we say then that there was no law? Let's come over for just a moment then to the epistle of Paul to the Romans in chapter 5. Wherefore, verse 12, Romans 5, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the worlds and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. Now he says for until the law, that is until the law of Moses came, sin was in the worlds but sin is not imputed where there is no law. But he says nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression who was the figure of him that was to come. So before the law death was in the worlds and it reigned from Adam to Moses which is some good few hundred years isn't it? So from Adam to Moses we have the developments of sin and death but here he says where there's no law the sin was not imputed. Now what does he mean? Surely God judged the case of the world of iniquity with Sodom and Gomorrah, did he not? He judged that world of iniquity. He spoke out against Pharaoh who would have taken Sarah to wife. He spoke against the Bimelech and said if you touch that woman you're a dead man. Were there laws of adultery then? Yes, brethren and sisters, there were laws. There were laws of God, there were statutes, there were judgments, the word of God was in the world but what was the difference? There was no stated condemnation. Take for instance the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made a very clear statement in the beginning. Mankind was to employ the principles of the Sabbath in his life to around the Sabbath keeping. We find the Sabbath referred to but nevertheless it wasn't until you get to the law of Moses that the law of the Sabbath became a law implying a judgment if you did not obey it. In fact it was more than implying it, it gave you a judgment. You pick up the sticks on the Sabbath and you'll be stoned to death. Why? Because now God was bringing law into a whole new dimension. Previously mankind had some responsibility to God's but he was never shown the dimensions of its condemnation. Likewise with any of the things that happened there was no stated condemnation outside what you see in Genesis. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die. And Paul's point is here that between that law and Moses there was no other stated condemnation the point is this the law was there, the commandment was there, the statute was there all as guides for mankind. Guides! It was an oral law passed on from father to son to son but without the associated judgment if you disobeyed. A legal system for mankind today is not like that. You see lots of signs around which indicates certain things that happen like touch these 22,000 volts overhead wires and in fact it can cause death and people who do this will be prosecuted. So you see there are many laws that imply to us by the wording of it that there's going to be a judgment on it minimum penalty maximum penalty we must state the outcome and all man's legal systems must state the punishment for disobedience but we don't have that till we get to Moses. What do we have before we get to Moses? Yes we have an oral code we know we have that because we know Abraham sought to obey us but yet Abraham is nowhere in scripture criticized by God but he's criticized by men. For instance Abraham is called the father of the faithful but Abraham went down to Egypt and he says to Sarah oh now Sarah look I know you're my half sister and I know you're my wife but look just emphasize the point you're my half sister you're my sister because if they know that you're my wife you're so beautiful that they're going to live in Egypt so just pretend you're my sister. Was that faith? He goes up to the king of the land again in a case of Abimelech you know again the same thing arises in Egypt down there Pharaoh took him aside he says why have you done this to me? Pharaoh rebuked him a very just rebuke and he nevertheless loaded upon him great gifts and possessions and sent him out of the land he goes up to the land and he does the same thing with Abimelech same problem is that faith? After all God said to him Abraham in thee shall all nations be blessed. He promised him a seed and he promised him a national outcome of his own body how could he believe that he would die before he'd had his own national outcome of his body we know that in scripture don't we but what about Abraham he says said in scripture that he obeyed all my commandments laws statutes and judgments but what happened to his faith on those two occasions? The point being brethren and sisters that Abraham was a man of weakness like we are God did not condemn him for his weakness and he did not bring law against him to condemn him to death because he was not a perfectly sinless man and in that model the great covenants of promise and the new covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ confirming the Abrahamic faith is what we live under today same thing God does not condemn us for human weakness he gives us a code which we must suffer from if we disobey it he does not condemn weakness he condemns outright sin and all sin is God is against God we acknowledge that but hence John says there is a there is a sin unto death and there's not a sin unto death what's the difference the difference is conscious rebellion against God's commandments premeditated presumptuous sin on the one hand and sins of weakness on the other so likewise Abraham's life was similar so God does not condemn us by law as long as we serve the law of Christ through the spirit in other words we walk after the spirit not after the flesh if we're walking in the right direction the Lord has provided a covering for our sins if we confess our sins unto him we are never indifferent to sin we must never be indifferent to sin sin is sin we never make place to fulfill the flesh in any sense of weakness but we acknowledge the grace and mercy of God on the other hands so what we have in Abraham is the basis of justification through faith in the presence of divine commandments but not living under the shadow of divine judgments because we are less than perfectly following the ideals of God now these were two different eras Abraham's era was very different to the era of Israel under the law why then was it necessary to bring a law why then could God not take the content of the Abrahamic faith and wizard straight through and bring Christ instead of Moses why did we need a Moses why was it necessary to have a thousand years of the law before we get to Christ mankind had another problem the problem was that he was not very good at self-analysis true he knew of the righteousness of God but he never thought enough about his own behavior for instance Genesis chapter 37 commences the story of Joseph let's just go there for just a moment now Jacob loved his son Joseph and of course he gave him a great garment to indicate his love Joseph loving him above all of his other sons but in verse 4 it says when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren they hated him and could not say to him shalom yourself they couldn't say peace they hated him again go down through the verse there through those verses you get the brothers again verse 8 Joseph gives them a dream and they hated him yet more for all his dreams which he made against them Joseph again is sent off on a mission to seek his brethren's well-being he takes some food he takes some provision and what do they say in verse 18 they conspired against him to slay him behold this dreamer comes and in verse 20 come now let us slay him and cast him into some pit down here and we'll say some evil beast has devoured him and we shall see what will become of his dreams and so they stripped Joseph out of his coats and they put him in a pit and in verse 25 they sat down to eat bread and the record later on says that they didn't listen to the cries of Joseph when they put him in that pit of death they didn't listen to his cries they sat down and had a party instead after this well he's not worth anything in the ground there to us is he so Judah says in verse 26 what profit is there if we if we slay our brother and simply conceal his blood there's no money in that for us is there so he says come now look i've got an idea let's sell him to the ishmaelites and all let's let him let us not touch touch him with our hands so we wouldn't really hurt him would we so they sell him to the ishmaelites and so send him down into egypt and now all these brothers come together back to the old man jacob and all his sons in verse 35 here and all his daughters rose up to comfort him to comfort dear old jacob who'd suddenly realized that his dear son joseph had been slaughtered by some evil beast and this is all there there now dad don't take it so hard look you've got still got 11 left it's all right was that the sort of mentality that god wanted to have as the inheritance of the promises to abraham was that the mind that he wanted to create in his people chapter 38 an interlude judah goes down now to a canaanite woman down in verse 2 judah saw there a war a certain daughter of a certain canaanite whose name was shua he took her he went down to her she conceived and bear him a son her call his name her she conceived again and bear another son call his name onan yet another son and she called his name shila and judah took a wife for her of his firstborn whose name was tamar and her judas firstborn was wicked in the sight of the lord and the lord of yaweh slew him well what's going on here why this little interludes well did god really want judah of course which stands for the glory of the hope of israel judah that tribe out of which the lord jesus christ came did he want him going off and marrying the daughters of canaan and producing seeds as profligate as it was which the wickedness was so great we're not even told what the wickedness was he was so bad that that yaweh just finished his life then and there look again judah says so honor look go into my brother's wife and marry her and raise up seed to her so honor knew that seed should the seed shouldn't be his no responsibility whatsoever or love for his brother and it came to pass he went to his brother's wife and he spilled it on the ground list that he should give seed to his brother and the thing which he did displeased yaweh wherefore he slew him also what a beautiful scene this is here is the hope of israel here is the glorious heritage proceeding out of the bowels of abraham what a sordid detail is that what god was prepared to put up with is this the way they interpret like abraham did all god's commandments and statutes and laws and judgments something wrong isn't there where would the righteousness of god be manifested if that there is the hope of israel something had to happen and in the sequence of events that happened god takes all of those people and though they were tried in the story of joseph though all those brothers came yet to see their sin and bow down before their brother the problem was still in their children young benjamin of course the youngest that the jager watches over like a like a hen over her chickens because he doesn't want anything to happen to benjamin and the brothers well the brothers themselves they saw their problems but obviously they didn't carry the excitations home to their households so they end up all down there in egypt they multiply and in process of time they're put into slave ship and in process of time they cry out to gods now we have a new scene now we have israel not using the lusts and affections of the flesh as a means of gravitating and propagating to evil within this earth now they realize they have a problem king sin is dominating our bodies and our minds and is driving us into the grave now they should have seen that back there when they thought evil against joseph shouldn't they king sin was dominating their minds and driving their brother and them into the grave did it make a great deal of difference oh no let's sit down and have a party instead they had no moral consciousness of what they were doing and they were destroying themselves in the process so you see there had to be something better we needed a law a law that was able to teach them something they had never learned before so you see we really do need the commandments and in our next session we'll have a look

Transcript

When Israel went down into the land of Egypt, they went into a land which was well known and described as a land of sin and death. It was a land in which they had to abide for some considerable period of time in order that they were able to appreciate the dimensions of what sin really meant in their lives as individuals and domestic societies and in their land as they had to people outside their immediate domestic scene. What they had to discover was the true results of a certain kind of behavior. All human behavior brings its results, whether they be beneficial or deleterious. We must experience that which we sow. We must reap what we sow. So Israel had to be taken to a land of sin and death that they might appreciate that if they should so behave in such a manner as they did and as they were doing before God, then ultimately they must meet the position of their just desserts. So in the land of Egypt there arose a pharaoh that knew not Joseph and so this pharaoh could see the growing potential of a real organization of social opposition to his regime. The people of Israel sent it from the land of Goshen and began to multiply and multiply and multiply. Sogarway had blessed the wombs of their women. They had grown as an enormous nation numbering something from 75 people to approximately something like 2 million people in a period of about 260 years and so this pharaoh said we must put them in service else will they rule us. So here was the first point about the decision that's down here in Egypt, somewhat like the point of decision that had to be made between Goliath and David's. The proposition was this, either you will serve us or we will serve you. We cannot live in an accommodation any longer and that was exactly how pharaoh also saw it. So the people of Israel were there of course growing as a great population. They didn't have any military strength but give them enough population and the force of the people alone will create a massive wave as an army. Pharaoh could see that unless he put them in subjection they themselves would be in subjection and the Hebrews would reign and rule over Egypt like the Hyksos did and so they had to take the only course of action, slave ship for Israel. So Israel placed in slave ship they now began to feel the crisis of the age in which they were living in which now they would serve pharaoh and then after a period of time the pharaoh would put them out to pasture they would die and be buried in a land of sin and darkness where there was no hope for the people of Israel. So this was a state that was new to them. Previously they existed and lived in hope of the promises made of God unto Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob but where was the hope of it now? As prophecy had said thy seed shall be afflicted 400 years and afterwards I will bring them back into this land. There was a promise of hope which Yahuwah had given to Abraham himself telling him what would happen to his seed. Then when the appropriate time came Moses rose up. Of course Moses sought to do justice by his people. He was well trained in the arena of the household of pharaoh himself. He became an expert in all matters of the Egyptian hierarchy. He was fluent in Egyptian language. He was trained and skilled as a leader but yet he was a man that Israel wasn't too keen on and so when once Moses as we know had given justice to one of his own brethren over an Egyptian warrior when he sought to maybe get them to stop their arguing and fighting amongst themselves. They said well who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Thus they forced Moses exiled for 40 years away from them. In the period of his exile just preceding his returning again to the land his God Yahweh the God of Israel had revealed himself unto Moses in a burning bush. Burning bush became a symbol of something very important. Where there is heat, where there is fire, where there is trial but in which such affliction the individual is not consumed. The symbol of the burning bush and so in our lives brethren sisters we have to go through affliction, tribulation, heat and pressure of every kind for what purpose? To purify us by fire that in the ultimate sense of God's acceptance of us he might find in us gold well tried in the fire of the cauldrons of our lives experience that we might see the glory of God and overcome the profligate nature which each of us possesses. So Moses was shown a symbol of something that no other servant of God was shown ahead of him. There must be tribulation in order to enter into an acceptable position before God. As Paul put those words through much tribulation do we enter into the kingdom of God. This principle was demonstrated to Moses and so from there Moses takes back the message of hope to Israel and again they say well who will we say has sent me unto them? I mean God which God can I save? Do they understand the God? God was known as El Shaddai but what now do I say is the name of God and hence the point we have in Exodus chapter 6. Here we find God revealing his name and answering the question which Moses had posed. Verse 1 then the Lord or Yahweh sent it to Moses now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh for with a strong hand he says shall he let them go with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his of his lands and God spake unto Moses and said unto him I am Yahweh and I appear unto Abraham unto Isaac and unto Jacob as will eliminate the term there the name of it's in italics it is not repeating the Hebrew script I appeared to them as El Shaddai the mighty warrior the mighty God but by my name Yahweh was I not made known unto them the significance here is of course the in the word known here it means to make known in the sense of experiencing something well Israel obviously now had not experienced anything to do with the name of God here but back in the days of Abraham when Abraham himself had made an offering on Mount Moriah of his own son Isaac and when the father stepped in to say don't slay your son Abraham I as an altar Yahweh will provide so Abraham knew the name of God and many other passages of scripture this is recorded also but basically here the message is this that they did not experience the meaning of that name and hence Israel as the 12 sons of Israel were concerned in the manner of their rather ill-reputed lives in which they acted so egregiously and aggressively against their own brother Joseph and how they saw their old father there pining in sorrow for the death of their son and they sat down to comfort him as heartless individuals who had not the slightest meaning of the sentimentality of godliness that had to change now God gives his name and he says in verse six of this chapter wherefore say unto the children of Israel I am Yahweh now you'll notice that those words conclude verse 8 also the same expression I am Yahweh now why is this incorporated as part of these verses why is he telling us here but by this name was I not made known unto the fathers to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob because within verses six to eight is coming up something very very important about the name of God let's look at it I am the Lord or Yahweh and I will one bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians two I will rid you out of their bondage I will redeem you with a stretched out armor with great judgments and I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a God and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God which brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will bring you into the land concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and I will give it you for an inheritance I am Yahweh now what's the point of all that here was to be the setup brethren and sisters of a kind of relationship which other people did not possess before this time God had never so shown himself to any other people as he is now going to show to these people of Israel and as we can see in these verses he has highlighted one important fact he had heard the groaning of the children of Israel notice verse five there I've heard their groaning I've heard the affliction in bondage they have appreciated the implications of sin so it's like us when we came to the truth and we come to God we say father I hate this body I hate this sin that I have and we cry because of the oppression of sin like the apostle Paul could see it oh wretched man that I am he could see what he was like every person who sees this nature cries to God and we groan because of the oppressiveness of sin over us then God steps in then he says yes I've heard your groanings and I'm going to rid you of that bondage and affliction like the Lord Jesus Christ who says you know take my yoke upon you learn of me come to me and rest from your labor of sin and so here the father says I will redeem you it is my work of redemption I'll redeem you with a strong arm I'll crush the power of king sin that rules you I'll bring you through the waters of baptism in the Red Sea and I'll bring you out before the land of the wilderness and I'll take you to my mountain and there at my mountain I'll show myself under you and I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a god now that relationship was never seen in any of the other patriarchs it is a relationship now where we look at the father taking them to him as his children and thus he's going to put his name upon that family and as he said I've placed my name upon the nation of Israel they were named by his name in the sense that they should have been people who in their lives could demonstrate the qualities of the character of almighty God but how could they do that before they knew what it was look at their own characters the lack of qualities of God in them hatred malice murder inequity all of those things how was that the seed of Abraham's faith now they had to learn how it was to be given to them they had to learn the manner of godliness they had to learn by God's own laws what state of righteousness was and what it wasn't and only by this means would they appreciate the morality that we must have towards our father so in that background brethren and sisters we can see the foundations of importance for the redemption of sin he brought them to a mount to give them a divine code of ethics and moral responsibility before God and man and not until this point in the history of Abraham's seed have they so had this revealed so we go over to Exodus chapter 20 he takes him to the mountain and on the third ascent of Moses he is given the law and so as he goes forth in verse one God spake all these words saying I am the Lord thy God which have brought you out from the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage he brought them out of bondage to sin and death now 10 commandments in fact 10 words they're known as the 10 words one thou shalt have no other god before me two thou shalt not make graven images any unto thee any graven images of any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the water under the earth three thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain four remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy five honor thy father and thy mother and thy days shall be long upon the land which Yahweh thy God has given thee six thou shalt not kill seven thou shalt not commit adultery eight thou shalt not steal nine thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor and ten in verse 17 thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house thy neighbor's wife his man servants his maid servants his ox his ass or anything that is thy neighbors 10 commandments these 10 commandments are part of the law of Moses this we find quite conclusively from a number of verses but anyway what we see here is the whole ethical approach of God's to his people under 10 principle headings and as we find there are a number of the same number of plagues brought Israel before God in judgment and brought the judgment upon the flesh so the same number of virtues now bring us towards God on the other hand it's very easy to leave Egypt but as we see from history it is not easy to enter the land of promise so when he takes his people to the holy mount he expounds to them this basis of description a describing to them what the meaning of God's moral ethical code is in 10 commandments well true these 10 commandments create like what we might say as a synthesis or a summary of what all the other laws did say and so we notice in these 10 commandments are divisions of man's responsibility you will notice in the first five commandments they concern man's relationship to God that is that you have no other gods before him that you do not make any graven images that you do not take the name of God in vain that you remember Sabbath before God and in verse 12 it says honor thy father and thy mother now he was an important comment well you might say yes but this has relationship to man's relationship within his own people this is not to God true except that the bridge is to honor God is to honor your natural parents because then you realize what the relationship is as God said I will take you to me for a people you will be my people he would adopt the people of Israel as his own precious precious treasure and therefore he would come before those people in such a way to show to them his character his qualities his love that he wanted seen in those people if this could be done then they would honor their parents because they saw their parents relationship before God and therefore the lessons of what they had to do before God in the second phase of the commandments it has to do with our relationship one to another for instance thou shalt not kill thou shalt not commit adultery shalt not steal shalt not bear false witness and shall not covet your neighbor's possessions so here we have responsibility towards God in the first parts and responsibility towards man in the seconds a very important vision let us notice for instance how in fact under the law of Israel in the time of Christ this delineation was very clearly observed Luke chapter 10 uh in Luke chapter 10 in verse 25 commencement of the parable of the good samaritan and behold a certain lawyer a prominent lawyer as that means stood up and tempted Jesus Christ saying master what shall I do to inherit eternal life that was the question of the day this was a point of course of discussion and almost disagreement and controversy about what was the means of inheriting eternal life in the case of the Sadducees they didn't believe in us in the sense of resurrection of the part spirits they were getting somewhat more of a of a stoic philosophy into their religion at this time however here is the question from a lawyer a prominent lawyer one's skills in discussing the law and looking at the law and as basic content so Christ said to him well you are the lawyer what is written in your law how do you read it how do you interpret the answer to that question the lawyer was hoping to get Christ ensnared in some way but Christ knowing that he was the lawyer put it back on him and says well you're the lawyer you tell me and he answered and he said thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy hearts with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy minds and thy neighbor is thyself now why did the lawyer give this answer what must I do to inherit eternal life from where did the lawyer get this answer well he got it from two verses in scripture which were quite separate one from the other the first comment there you will notice comes from Deuteronomy chapter six and verse five right down to as far as the word mine and then he says and thy neighbor is thyself and he added that from Leviticus 19 and verse 18 here was a brilliant summary by a lawyer and Jesus Christ says you've said absolutely the right thing full marks you see his reading was perfect nothing wrong with the analysis and that analysis brethren and sisters is the analysis of the content of the 10 commandments the first group have to do with loving the Lord our God with all our hearts with our soul with our strength in our minds and that is exactly what the commandments were saying the hearts is that moral portion of us in here the heart that seeks to pursue something there is then the soul the life itself the life within itself there is then the strength the physical ability of a person to manifest his belief and understanding and then there's the mind and that means the intention the intention of a person what a vast change this was to be upon the previous nation of israel now they were brought to a mountain and unto them was expounded the principles of God manifestation not that God's interested enough to simply save us for our own selfish viewpoints but that God wants a family he wanted to manifest that family not as the robots but as loving sons and daughters who understanding the father wanted to be like the father and wanted to please the father because they loved the father adopted sons and that's what we all are adopted children into the household and the family name of the God of Israel this is a heritage brethren and sisters that we all have Israel were offered the same heritage and they were offered it by promise if they followed God that they would not and again the lawyer accurately added the words from Leviticus and love thy neighbor as thyself that's a new dimension too isn't it because every man loves himself more than anybody else here was a comment here was a an occasion for a provocation of his own mind see if you can actually love someone as much as you love yourself if you do you'll respect them in every respect that you have your own self-respect in your own minds and so this synthesis of the law having been very clearly related the Lord Jesus Christ himself had then well he said this do and now should live you see to know what the commandment said was insufficient it's like saying yes I love God with all my hearts with all my minds I love him with all my intentions but I'm unprepared to love him with my strength and so we don't do the things that we say we believe in and this is of course brethren and sisters a very adequate excitation for us isn't it we're very good at quoting scripture we're excellent at telling other people what they should do but do we do it ourselves as we should here is the moral force of God's word revealed to his people in such a structured code that by that code they might appreciate God's righteousness and therefore their own failure before God well let's move back then just a little further into the book of exodus here just to chapter 21 at the end of chapter 20 we have introduced here what is called the the book of the covenants here was the codification now of all the principles that might be embodied in what is seen in the 10 commandments or the 10 words so in verses 22 to 23 God states his position concerning the book of the covenant and says and the Lord said unto Moses thou shalt thou say unto the children of Israel ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven ye shall not make with me gods of silver neither shalt thou make unto you gods of golds there must be no deification of anything and then he brings up the points of the yahweh altar in verse 24 and says at altar of earth thou shall make unto me and shall sacrifice there on thy burnt offerings of thy peace offerings thy sheep and thy oxen in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee it was Jerusalem the place where he recorded ultimately his name and having placed his name upon that city and upon that people that is where Solomon had come to rest the permanent altar before God's and so in speech in first kings eight all the way through he is making the point the place where thou has chosen to put thy name this would be the place where a person had to bring his offering before God's to acknowledge the name of God that in acknowledging the name of God he was acknowledging that he was coming to be part of that name that he should have joined that name that that name was part of him and so as he comes to the altar he brings of himself and sacrifices himself before the name of God that the name of God's might continue upon him well in what follows then in chapter 21 we have various laws given laws which had to do with God's relationship to his people and the people's relationship one between another chapter 21 and in verses one to 11 we have the laws here concerning masters and slaves in which even when Israel having slaves in their own community were still given laws as how to they they should treat those slaves they were not able to take those slaves and treat them like a dog in the backyard to beat them into submission until they were dead and then throw them over the back fence they were not to do that with their slaves so God was to control their attitude to the people who are most servile in their communities and so he gives them what the requirements were you will notice that if it came time for instance under this first section here if an hebrew servant for instance in verse two be six years he shall serve and then on the seventh he shall go out free to nothing that's if you buy hebrew servants of their own brethren this may be possible because in a great deal of difficulties of finances the family may be caused to sell themselves in order to gain life during difficult periods that's why whenever he fought at seven times seven the 49 year cycle it will be a year of jubilee the releasing of all the slaves because every man got his land back again now he could till it now he could go into agriculture but he may need to sell himself or his family in order to give part assistant for the help that he needed well after seven years he could go out free well he says if he came in by himself he shall go out by himself he will if he were married to his wife he shall go out with him but if his master has given him a wife and she have borne him sons and daughters the wife and her children shall be her masters and he shall go out by himself and if the servant shall plainly say i love my master my wife and my children i will not go out free that his masters shall bring him unto the elohim that's what it is in the hebrew there the elohim and it has to do with those judges of israel who should have been acting as elohim before god in other words god was there seen in the judges of his people they were manifesting god's judgments and therefore where two or three of those judges were together there was god in the midst of them what a wonderful way to go where in fact the judges of israel had the responsibility of taking the reference of almighty god's mind and morality into the israel's individual judgments this was a whole new code the 12 sons of jacob never acted like this well as time goes on we see that if they bring him to the judges then what happens is that he shall bring him to the door under the door post of his house and the master shall bore his ear through with it all and he shall serve him forever that means he shall serve him to the unconcealed future or the concealed future here it has to do with the work of a slave a slave who wants to lovingly serve his master then he shall serve him for all time well this was a very kind requirements because it meant that if he served the master and loved him the master would obviously be of the kind that would love him i mean the master would love the the servant would therefore be someone that he would care for that he would be treating with kindness that he would be considerate unto what a wonderful message it is brethren as this is for us to see the morality of that servant there you know that is exactly our relationship to christ even though he is our lord though he is our husband though he is our bridegroom we are still the slaves we are bond slaves to the lord Jesus Christ not just eight hours a day 24 hours a day we are bond slaves to christ and we serve him because we love him and we bore our ear through we make our ear part of his mouth so that our ear is ever open unto his words and that's what it meant in the sense of boring his through to the doorpost of the house of his master thus his ear would constantly be owned by the master that he always listened and heeded and thought about what he heard and served his master well there was a moral responsibility responsibility of the master responsibility also of a slave the law incorporated that as part of human behavior whereby masters and slaves could live and work happily together instead of the liberation of the individual who says i shall not serve anybody else but myself isn't that the problem with this world people do not want moral responsibility for other people they want to be liberated individuals full of their own liberty fraternity and whatever equality they want to choose to place upon themselves mankind's world today serve self first because i'm all right jack that philosophy is what is bringing our world to its knees man has ceased to see his part that he must play to someone else's requirements in society of which he is an independent part let's notice the next of the section of laws here verses 12 to 36 concern the circumstances of physical injury notice these words he that smites a man so that he die he shall be surely put to death if a man lie not in wait but god delivers him into his hand then i will appoint thee a place whether he shall flee to this would be the places a refuge or there would be the horns of the altar but he says if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor and slay him with guile he determined death upon him he says thou shall take him from my altar he cannot hold the horns for sanctuary there you'll take him from my altar and you will slay him this is what happened to joe of course as we read in first kings two verse 34 now he says in verse 15 and he that smites his father or his mother he shall surely be put to death no question about that you will notice that there's no accidents about slaying your father or your mother in the first instance if a man smites another man he might have some refuge because he may not have determined death upon him but if you touch your parents you're a dead person and that was to be laid out further in the laws of god notice the interesting point of verse 16 here and he that steals a man and sells him or if he be found in his hand he shall surely be put to death well it's just as well joseph's brothers went under that law at that time wasn't it there was nobody to put them to death but you see he was the principle that where mankind without moral responsibility could act as he wished towards his neighbor or towards his brother now under the divine code of ethics mankind is deliberately constrained of gods but he might appreciate that he cannot do what he might otherwise like to do to his neighbor he will be judged of god therefore to steal a man and to sell him is to court death yourself well in the next section of these commandments he talks here about a number of points bringing us down then in this this division concerning physical injury talking now as he does in verse 22 he says if men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruits apart from her and yet no mischief follow he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him and he shall pay as the judges determine and in verse 23 if any mischief follow then he shall give life for life well here is an interesting point a point that perhaps our society could learn much from today the woman who has a child the child is in a gestational phase it commences a very small fetus and commences its growth until the time of its birth and then it goes forth and when the umbilical is cut the child stands forth in its own independence from the mother however the questions have been asked a great deal as to what is the option of abortion what is the morality of terminating the life of a child in the womb of its mother point of great discussion isn't it probably in this country as an australian elsewhere what guides our minds to understand when a life is a life before god well the law of god provides it for us look at it there you see if the child die in the womb as he says if mischief follows then that child has died and therefore there is a case for retribution upon an unborn child so god obviously considers that the unborn child is a life in its own integrity that perhaps should be put into the question of abortion and when is a life a life there is another interesting point that emerges too uh let's note for a moment just in judges 13 upon this issue this concerns the the birth of samson and samson who was of course to be a nazarite before gods judges 13 so we have the angel's visitation to manoa's wife and says to her in verse three behold now thou art barren and verus not but thou shall conceive and bear a son now therefore beware i pray thee and drink not wine nor strong drink and eat not any unclean thing for lo thou shall conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come on his head for the child shall be a nazarite under god from the womb and he shall begin to deliver israel out of the hand of the philistines now there is an interesting comment also samson was to be a nazarite from the womb so his mother was not to have of any drink or a fruit of the vine because that was part of the nazarite vow in other words the nazarite had three things upon him he was not to cut his hair he was not to partake of the fruit of the vine and he was not to touch any dead body so in these three instances samson was to be a nazarite from the womb and because the woman by virtue of the placenta and the umbilical cord by which she passes her the content of her own blood through to the child she was not to take of any wine nor eat of any unclean thing which shows us that again the child in the womb has its own integrity before god two important references brethren that show us a moral responsibility to an unborn infant and now the world is in a great dilemma what to do about abortions termination of life is it moral is it not moral who chooses to do it is it the woman who makes the choice of the father who makes the choice is it both of them and does the child have any consideration in the picture look at the chagrin that the world is placed with about that problem look how clear it is under the law that child has the integrity of its own life form to god and if you bring upon a woman a cause whereby through violence be whatever means it has reached a woman that child dies that person is held responsible for the death of her child and so the law went on to say back in exodus 21 eye for eye tooth for tooth burning for burning wounds for wound and stripe for stripe hence the law is not saying here that there was an absolute demand that you must take the eye for the eye or you must take the tooth for the tooth but it said if you are going to take it that's all you can take and that has its own justice so you see here the lord jesus christ expands upon this of course does he not over in matthew chapter 5 talking about it he talks about the eye for the eye and the tooth for the tooth the law of moses was here regulating human practices of justice that the crime would be matched by a punishment suitable to it but christ relooks at the law and he gives to those who will come into his commission a much greater responsibility than what those under the law of moses even had they have greater privileges why should they not also have greater responsibilities so we notice again going through this chapter verse 28 if an ox or a man or a woman that they die then the ox shall be surely stoned and his flesh shall not be eaten but the owner of the ox shall be quits but if the ox will want to push with his horns if you knew that this ox was a violent creature and is testified to by the owner and you haven't kept him in but that he's killed a man or a woman the ox shall be stoned and his owner shall also be put to death certain justice and that isn't there again what's it reminding us about brethren it's reminding us about how extensive must be our consideration for the neighbor and as the lawyer rightly interpreted to love a mother man like he loves himself would we expect to walk out into the backyard and see out there a an ox which was as violent as they come with a raging torrent of strength in him as he pours the ground and charges for back door as you walk out would you walk out through that back door well do you expect your neighbor to walk out through his back door and see and confront the same neighborly companion that you've sent over to him you see we have a need to consider the outcome of what we do isn't it so brethren that we can argue the point and say well look i have a right to own a vine and ox well maybe you do but keeping hedged in don't let him affect anybody else because if he does then you're a dead man what does it mean to talk about rights and responsibilities together it's the old question isn't it about the the person living at number 52 graham street that says i have the right to to wash my clothes on a monday and hang them on the line outside to drive a man number 54 says i have the right to burn all the rubbish and the beer cartons and everything from my previous weekend's experience do they both have rights i don't think they both share the same privileges at least not at the same time now what should decide that where does the statue of liberty starts and where does it ends you see it should start at the point where we now what is my behavior going to be in terms of its affliction or effect upon someone else isn't that the basic teaching of christ do unto others as you would have them do unto you well of course joseph's brethren had no thought like that did they not the slightest thoughts about the implications of the crime they were creating not the slightest thought even for their own father who at this time was pining himself away to death he said i shall go to my son in the grave and they pat him on the shoulder and say there there dad is not so bad but any one of those boys could have hopped on his camel or his ass or whatever and gone down and bought joseph back and said we did a terrible thing boys we've got to bring him back dad we did the wrong thing here's joseph they could have done that couldn't they they could have even told their father well i'm sorry we've sold him at least it was honest and at least it would have given their father some hope that maybe one day when this glorious zafnath paneer emerged from the land of egypt and looks at jacob that jacob would not have had the pain that he did through those many years yes where is the moral sense of responsibility the law of god was simply to show them that so if you've got an uncontrollable ox in your backyard make sure you hovel him well because the effects of our own dangerous weapons can affect other people and that must be looked into so as you go down here you'll see in verse 30 again now he talks again about this ox and he says and if they be laid on him a sum of money then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him whether he have god a son or of god a daughter according to his this judgment shall it be done unto him and if the ox shall push a man servant or a maid servant he shall give unto their master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be given to him as a reward for his actions he was a law that had importance to it someone else's master might become affected by an ox that would gore them and so a payment of 30 pieces of silver had to be made it's not very surprising is it brethren and sisters when you come down along the line of israel's history that you get to the point where the pharisees and sadducees and the priests together had conspired against the lord Jesus Christ as the the subject that they as oxen would gore that now comes forth judas and for 30 pieces of silver negotiates payment to him to enable them to gore by as the ox the son of god who was also the servant of god the suffering servant of god isn't it a strange part of the mysticism of man's iniquity that he can pay 30 pieces of silver to give himself an opportunity of gore in the son of god the bull's abation and campers him around look at the strange situation that emerges in god's people where they know what the love of the law says we're here before the lord Jesus Christ a very eminent lawyer says yes i know what the law says thou shall love god and love your neighbor as yourself and then the eminent lawyers the ones who went through the law the priests who themselves had studied law from child from a child's age they are the ones who now place the whole law in the scrap heap while they proceed with their murderous plots against the lord Jesus Christ what a terrible part of human nature we have that that can happen but yet their brethren and sisters in the justice of the moral code of god's ethics from Sinai to Israel he taught them everything that the love of christ might also teach them they had a moral responsibility not only to god but to their fellow man and hence of course the parable of the good samaritan who was the neighbor who is my neighbor who has this responsibility to me or to whom do i have the responsibility to do a neighborly thing they debated over who the neighbor was and you know who the neighbor was christ told them the one who is near you that's a definition of the neighbor the one who is near you and it so happens that in most of our lives experience and our lifestyle our brethren and sisters are the nearest ones to us but that's not always the case we often meet someone in the street who has a need we're driving long in the car and we see someone in difficulties with maybe a burden of some kind they cannot lift or someone who is suffering from some kind of problem oh we drive on by don't we in case there be some risk of getting out and help them well the neighbor is the person that we see in trouble that is a definition of the neighbor and christ's example gives us that picture remember the words of the apostle to do good unto all men but especially they have a household there is a primary responsibility to our closest neighbor to our family in the truth and in the world but thereafter as we have opportunity and as we see need we do it if we have the right attitude of mind of course that will not be a problem love becomes something spontaneous not something about which we look through a series of commandments say oh yes clause 23 section b number six yes i can do this for him love has to drive us to our actions of love not conscription and therefore brethren and sisters the high morals of moses law is something that reminds us all of one great message you cannot love the lord your god with your heart with your mind with your soul or with your strength if you cannot show it to the brothers and sisters of which family we form the part of god's name if we do that god shall bless us if we don't do it with there's no way that god can know we have the slightest love for him or that he has love for us

Transcript

Well, what we're doing, brethren and sisters, is surveying some elements of the law of Moses. Looking at the moral content of the law and therefore looking at the high ethical structure of God's commandments to us as His people. We're able to see in our last class how that God had shown to Israel His own people a time when they must and are forced by the law to follow a way of godliness which previously they had been uninformed of. I mean, they should have known it. They should have known it by looking purely at the character of God. But because they were too concerned about what they wanted and what they wanted their own avaricious flesh to achieve, what they wanted to covet in another man's possession, the anger, the jealousy, the envy that they showed. All of this they put first and then simply believed in God as a second option, almost as if religion had become to them what it is to most people today, a social crutch or maybe a cultural family background. And in all of this, Israel had to know and had to learn the nature of their God so far as His character was concerned that they might be able to see the purpose of God manifestation in this world. So we saw in the demonstration of the Ten Commandments the way in which by ten divisional we could see the structure of man's responsibility towards God and his neighbor. To love God with everything he possesses and to love his neighbor in every respect that he places upon himself as an individual. In that sense we can see the power of the morals of Moses' law making their impact upon a people who otherwise would not tend to think about their behavior as a contrast to God, but instead would think about their behavior as a contrast to the nations about them. Remember when Habakkuk raised this question himself, when he had said, Lord, what is the justice in effect? What is the justice when you bring a nation less righteous than we are against us? Was this just? You see, the difficulty was that Israel had to understand that as far as God is concerned there is not less righteous and more righteous before Him. Righteousness is only what God possesses and only what was manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we compare ourselves with ourselves then we simply lower the standards of righteousness for two reasons. Firstly, because we're comparing ourselves against something which is much less righteous than God or someone that is much less righteous than God. And secondly, because we are comparing ourselves by the things we want to remember. That is, we say, well, yes, I don't do those sort of things. The sins of commission we are all very ready to think about that we don't do, but what about the sins of omission? The things we should have done that we didn't do? What about all those thousands of mistakes that we happen to forget quite easily but try to remember the virtues instead? It was by this rather ridiculous approach to righteousness that Paul said concerning the law he was righteous. How was he righteous concerning the law? When he gives an exposition in scripture showing that the law made no man righteous. Well he meant that he was righteous by the way in which the Judaizers looked at righteousness. The leaders in Israel are the priests and the Jewish echelon class. They were the ones who thought, well, they must be more righteous, but if we run stringently by the law, of course, no man is righteous. So they forgot about that principle and said, now we will redefine righteousness. If my good works are more weightier than my evil works, then I am righteous. And on that basis they established their righteousness. And of course, as we said, we are very ready to remember good works, but to forget evil works. The sins of omission, brethren and sisters, are sins that we may never be aware of, but they are still sins. And as we grow in our knowledge of the truth, as we appreciate the personal failures that we may have one towards another, as we realize the limits of our dedication to God which should be improved upon. In all these things we constantly, from the word of God, grow. We grow in our consciousness of his righteousness, in our knowledge of his power and of his righteous acts that he has done in scripture. All these things improve by our knowledge and absorption of this word according to the exposure we give to this word in our lives. This is growth. These are real patterns of development. This is the maturity unto which we must grow and become those who are integral parts of the unity of the faith. So as we get older in the truth, we become more aware of sins of omission that we did earlier in the truth. But can any of us ever stand up and say, yes, I have reached the righteous proportion before God? Just to ensure, brethren and sisters, that we never did reach that stage, God sent the law, should no man stand before God justified, because man had great difficulty in understanding the only true yardstick to measure righteousness and that is God and his son. In that sense only, brethren and sisters, do we see the power of God's righteousness in this world compared, of course, to our failure. Now, to what extent does failure manifest itself? What do we consider sin and what do we not consider sin? Again, we must be guided by scripture. So in what we want to look at this morning, in just a few verses that we have in Exodus 22, yesterday we looked at a few of the lessons that emerge in Exodus 21 concerning the laws there of masters and slaves, of instances of physical injury. Now in chapter 22, we come to look at a section here concerning property rights, concerning the laws of theft, laws concerning plunder, the laws of deposits. And then we look at verses 16 through to the 23rd chapter here, which we'll consider some of these tomorrow, which looks at laws concerning various moral attributes, moral demands that God makes upon us. He made them to Israel, very truly He made them to Israel. But we have to be very careful, brethren and sisters, that we do not see that these are the laws that Jesus Christ took out of the way of His cross. He didn't take the laws of God away. He took the condemnation away. This must be defined, however, to say, well, are we obliged to obey the law of Moses today? No, we are not obliged to obey the law of Moses today. We are obliged to obey the law of Christ. But what He did not take away were the ethics of this law, the high moral contents, the consideration that one must have for one's neighbor in every respect. These things were not eradicated. They were redefined and given more power by Christ. What Christ removed was the basis of potential of righteousness by obedience to law. That system He removed. So, therefore, He took away, nailing it to the stake, the principle by which man might feasibly try and find life by law. But law could give no life to a man that condemned him for breaking it. And that was the principle of law that we see in Paul's expositions. But the ethics remain. And to demonstrate that, that is why in our Bible today we have all these details. There are perhaps many other aspects of the details of the law of Moses which we do not contain, which we don't have. They are related to a society in a given period of time and cannot be reproduced in any other society. But so far as what we see here is what God has left on record specifically for our benefits. There are lessons there, there are morals there, there are principles of God's righteousness there. And when we think about it, we can often perhaps improve our own performance before God and before our brethren and sisters. Well, notice just in this first section here, he talks in verses one to four about the laws concerning theft. Verse two, for instance, he says in chapter 22 of Exodus there, if a thief be found breaking in, breaking up means breaking in, literally in the Hebrews, digging in. Of course, in those days they had stone walls and you had to dig your way through the walls to get in. And he says, if he be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him. And then it says, and he shall make full restitution if he have nothing. Then he says, he shall be sold for his theft. Just a small law there. Again, it says verse four, if the theft be certainly found in his hand, that is, if he's caught red-handed, alive, whether it be ox or ass or sheep, then he shall restore double what he has taken. Of course, the illustrations of those things which would be stolen in these days have to do with a pastoral, small domestic society. They don't talk about whipping out television sets and other things there, of course. But in this world today, thieves are everywhere. We know that. And thieves have to be controlled by society. Look at just the ethics of this. If the thief comes in at night, and the thief be smitten that he die, then shall no blood be shed for him. Why? Because the principles are that if the thief broke into a house, digging through the rocks at night, when the man was in there with all his children, all at stake in this darkness, then if in a struggle the thief was smitten, the man was seen as simply struggling for the survival of his children, his home life. And he could not, in fact, see what he was doing. So it wasn't going to be a case of premeditated murder. If it is daylight, however, and the thief be smitten, then there may be a case for the avenger of blood to come forth and demand some retribution for the life that has been lost. After all, the man was there to steal, not to murder. There is some sense of justice in that, isn't there? After all, otherwise men might see a thief there and say, Oh, terrific, we've got a chance of gaining another mascot. Take his head off and hang it on the village center. You see, that would be aggression far beyond any crime that was committed. And therefore, there would be retribution for that. Notice how delicately God showed to man, even against his aggressors and the thieves around him, that he had a moral responsibility to that man. He was not allowed to do anything that might not match the measure of the crime. Well, concerning the laws of plunder, then, we have in verses 5 to 6 some very interesting little related laws here concerning what man would do in the case of plunder. Now, if a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put his beasts, and shall feed in another man's fields, then he says of the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard shall he make restitution. Well, here is an illustration of a law which, of course, was important in those days. There, being a pastoral community, very largely, which they were, if a man was happening to get his own sheep out of the fold, or it so happened that he did not repair his fences or his gates or whatever it was, then, as a result of his neglect, his neighbour could be deprived of his own requirements of food for his own flock, from which, of course, he gained his welfare and his living. So, again, the law came in there and says if a man shall cause a field or a vineyard to be grazed over, or he shall put his beasts, and he shall feed in another man's field, then let me read what the Septuagint in search of this point. It says, he shall surely make restitution out of his own field according to the yield thereof, and if the whole field be eaten, now we come back in in the text, then it says, of the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard shall he make restitution. So, you see, here was a point where man was not allowed, through his sheer neglect, to bring deprivation upon others, and therefore it reminds us of a principle that we must seek to control that which is ours to be responsible for its potentials, to affect someone else in some deleterious manner that would, of course, deprive your neighbour in some way. Well, the Apostle Paul reminds us of a little principle like this. Let's go back for a moment just to Romans chapter 13. Romans 13, the Apostle brings many beautiful lessons of personal responsibility that we have before Christ. In the 13th chapter, he highlights the expression, I'll just read verse 10, Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. So, if love does not work any ill to his neighbour, it means that there will be consequent upon us an obligation to ensure that anything within our possession or control cannot create ill to our neighbours. And that is a point that we often overlook, that you have the law of Moses as a steeple, therefore by that operation is the law of God fulfilled. It shows to us, brethren and sisters, that between our own communities and those with whom we have frequent contact, we have an inexorable obligation to ensure the safety of other people from what we do. And if, in fact, we play that down to even the words we speak, we shall see a great demand of responsibility that we have before God. Notice the next verse we have back here in verse 6 of Exodus 22. If fire breakouts and caption thorns so that the stalks, or the shocks of corn, the heaps of sheaves, or the standing corn, or the field, he says, be consumed therewith, he that kindles the fire shall surely make restitution. Frequently, over there in the Middle East, as they still do today, they have to burn off the stubble in order to make way for the future growing harvest period. In this country, probably it's the same practice as also in my country. But if those fires get out of control, it is our responsibility to ensure that they don't. But if they do, they can ruin not only the next door neighbor's property, but of course vast thousands of acres. And in the last year, in Australia, we experienced enormous bushfires. There was a law made that any person who lights a fire when a fire danger season is on, or a fire danger day is on, then there is a fine of $1,000 or six months jail, or both. The reason for that would have been seen as very just because, you see, what happened when those fires got out of control in South Australia and Victoria, they burned thousands and thousands of acres, killing stock to the value of billions of dollars, destroying some 60 people's lives, and something like 1,500 homes were burned. All because somebody, two people, so irresponsibly lit matches where they shouldn't have. That shows us how great a matter a little fire can look, which of course brings us to that verse in James, James chapter three. In the third chapter here, James is of course giving us some very important lessons here about the destructive power of the tongue. But you'll notice how he says here in verse five, even so the tongue is a little member, and it boasts great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindled, and the tongue, the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, it defiles the whole body, it sets on fire the course of nature, and it's set on fire of Gehenna, as if we have a perpetual burning incinerator by what we start. Those messages, brethren and sisters, show us the importance of looking after fire, and how if we play with fire, of course our fingers can be burnt. A fire to us, brethren and sisters, is that which can create a very damaging result. By the things we say, by the little things we might say flippantly about someone else where we shouldn't say it to someone else. Take the issues, for instance, where, well, we could see a failure of a particular brother in regard to ourselves, so we go and tell everybody else about it except him. It was really a misunderstanding, perhaps your misunderstanding. And then you go and spread something, we spread something in my South Community, which then defaces and brings disrepute upon that brother's personality. And then once that rumor goes out, it finds its way all around the world. That's how easily we can disregard the principles of God's law here. If we start a fire, make sure that we counsel ourselves to contain that fire within the constraints that it should be. It's too easy, brethren and sisters, to say things flippantly, to talk out of turn, to use a word out of season against those who become the victims of our ill-gotten words. And thus a whole world of iniquity can start from a very simple striking of a match, like the tongue starts to work. Perhaps James had in mind this principle of the law when he wrote. One who was a member of Christ's community thought much upon the principles of the law and the law itself and its moral ethics he frequently alluded to. And here is an example, an example, brethren and sisters, of moral responsibility that we have towards our neighbor. If only we would think of those things when we should, perhaps our community could be a lot happier than it otherwise is. When we destroy a brother or a sister's self-respecting reputation, we may as well destroy them. And as we shall see in our study tomorrow, the great responsibility we have towards other brethren and sisters in the truth is very large, and we must never forget how extensive it is. So in our practical dealings with our brethren and sisters or those within the world, let us ensure that we see the moral responsibilities we are under in all our dealings with them. Surely we want them to look upon us as a community and say, well, look, true, he did the wrong thing, but he made full recompense for that. Or else he might say, well, I very much appreciated the way in which he pointed out that he was remaining and solely responsible for what he was doing. It's in ethics like this that it causes others to see our good works and glorify our God in heaven in the day of visitation. If our community instead tends to be self-seeking, self-centered, and selfish in the nth degree, then we're going to find ourselves being most unpopular with the people around us having very little to redeem us at the time of the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, let's look at a couple of other features of this 22nd chapter here. You'll notice, for instance, that in verse 8 here, we have the judgment of the Elohim, and it was there to determine, of course, the matters of trusteeship. But look down in just in verse 7, he says, if a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or vessels, staff could be rented vessels to keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house, and if a thief be found, let him pay double. But he says, if the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, that's the word Elohim again, those who should have represented God in judgment, to see whether he have put forth his hand unto his neighbor's goods. Well, this was open for possibility, and therefore it was to be examined as if this did happen. So if a neighbor has left his goods with you, you have a responsibility to ensure that those goods are looked after, and that those goods return. Well, if a man deliver, as verse 10 says, unto his neighbor an ass or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, and it die, or it be hurt, or driven away, and no man sees it, if there's no witnesses there, he says, then shall an oath of Yahweh be between them both. But he has not put his hand unto his neighbor's goods, and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good. So therefore, if there is no witness, he shall accept that what he has loaned to his neighbor is in fact happened by accident to have become lost. Well, in verse 12 he says, and if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof. That is, the theft may have been prevented by adequate care, and that is important again, adequate care of somebody else's possession. Verse 13 points out, as an expansion of verse 10, that in fact if there is a witness for the event, then something else should happen. If it be torn in pieces, then let him bring it for witness, and he shall not make good that which was torn, if he demonstrates that he hasn't put his hand to it. Again, moral responsibility for the owner. Verse 15 says, but if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good, or if it be a hired thing, it came for his hire. Now let's just amplify those verses a little so far as the meaning is concerned. If the owner thereof be with it, that is, if the owner happens to be associated with the goods at some time which were in somebody else's responsibility, then for the time he is with those goods, he takes over responsibility for it. And then he says, in that same verse he says, but if it be a hired thing, it came for his hire. Now what he's saying there, if you have not loaned this out, but you have leased it out, or rented it out, and therefore you're charging money for that rent, then he says the damage to that must be included in the price of its hire. So all these issues, you see, become very plain common sense issues. Much of our society is structured in a similar way today. But again we have to look at how well we treat other people's things that we might get. By circumstances over the years I have accumulated a library of books, some 4,000 in number, which is a collection very much of the history of the Christodelian community and of many other expository and reference works. Of course we do become conscious of materials that are resources for the truth because they're all very valuable. But frequently when I have loaned books out, they have come back with coffee stains and peanut butter in between the pages, and even raspberry jam, and I've wondered where on earth they do their study of these books. It's nice to see that the breakfast table is a source of communication and the word of God, but wonder whether that should be the place where we put possessions. I think often too we might borrow books, and I know that we're a very studious group of people, and we borrow books from our brethren and sisters, but sometimes we don't give them back. I often find the brother comes to my house and he goes through my bookshelf looking for his books to wonder if I might have somehow got his books on my shelf. I think in areas like this we just need to exercise obviously a lot of caution. As far as I'm concerned, if I lend a book out, I'll make it my responsibility to get that book back. I write the record that has been loaned out, and therefore it's up to me to chase it. Okay, the brother who has borrowed it, he obviously needs a book for some purpose in the truth, and we're willing to lend all of our resources for that purpose. But, again, weeks can sometimes be very forgetful because we are busy in the truth, the book is put down on the shelf it's forgotten about, the one who loaned it to you didn't make a record of to whom it was loaned, and therefore there's no outstanding advice as to where that book has gone. Small point, isn't it, brethren? Very small point, lending books, but look at the principle behind it. If we borrow something, look after it, put a plastic cover on it, and make sure you write the brother's name in it from whom you borrowed the book so that you'll remember where it came from. Because hang on to that book for long enough and you'll end up writing your own name in it because you'll forget where you got it from. You see, these are small principles of developing moral responsibility to one another concerning those matters which we help each other in. But nevertheless, this was indelibly impressed as part of the law of Moses. So when we see these small things which are done, which can often cause unnecessary offense between brethren and sisters, we should rebuke ourselves and say those principles were clearly laid down in the law of Moses. Why should I ignore them now? Simply because I'm under the law of Christ. But you see, the law of Christ said anyway, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And that law, in fact, brethren and sisters, incorporates every detail we are looking at, doesn't it? But how dull we are at times to perceive what that law is saying to us in its practical outworkings. Yes, we think about the large issues of interpersonal problems, we think about the big issues of human communication, but the small moments, those moments which cause the biggest problems, we end up completely forgetting about because we say they're not important. The fact that we cause offense in a small way doesn't matter. It's only the big ways that we're concerned about. And this is why this law of Moses in its highest ethics was developed to show Israel as a people and to us as a people of spiritual Israel today that it's in the tiniest matters of our behavior patterns by which we make the truth stand or fall. And hence, the moral issues that appear before us here. Well, let's look for a moment then at a couple of other points which now brings us into laws concerning moral laws. Well, verse 18, there's a very small comment made there. Which says, thou shalt not suffer a which to live. A comment appears right in the middle of sundry laws concerning God. Now, what do we mean by this law coming in here suddenly and how do we understand it? Moving suddenly into such a position like this. Thou shalt not suffer a which to live. Doesn't this sound as if, you know, here is a thief breaking into your home. And if that thief breaks in in daytime, what he has to do is replenish double what he's about to take. Or there might be a man who has maybe grazed over your place and you think, well, this is terrible, look what he's done. And then, nevertheless, it's something that he must make repayment for. He must give you the best of his own produce to replace what he's done. But here is a which. Now, what's a which? I mean, to us a which is somebody who might have put hands on a gretel in an oven. Or maybe she's a person who wears a funny hat and has a funny nose. A which in these days, brethren and sisters, was somebody of a particular kind of profession. And it sounds very aggressive, doesn't it? Thou shalt not suffer a which to live, but it was very important. You see, the which had great power. Let's notice also what the law said concerning witches. Well, let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 18 for just a moment. Deuteronomy chapter 18, here is a section in verses 9, let me see, 9 through 9, 10 to 11, where he says there, Most as of course, when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or the news as divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter of a which, or a charmer, or a consultor with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. A person who talks with the dead. Now, you will notice that all these things, today we would consider them just the mild arts of sophistry that only very superstitious people would ever become involved in. But the law there said alongside witches were people who put their children into the fires of Moloch. Doesn't seem reasonable as a comparison, does it? Until we realize what the witch is. You see, the witch was one who sought to deceive the people of God by telling them about things which supposedly she had seen in the heavens, heard of whispering spirits over their back at some time, had received visions concerning people's destiny, was reading in their palms concerning things that were going to happen to their children, and is telling by the stars simply what would happen, whether it's Virgo, or Ares, or somebody else. And they base their advice on those ill-gotten sources of information, and thereby proceeds to deceive people so that they destroy their lives before God. And that is important. You see, God made it very clear that so far as his gospel was concerned, and so far as the law was concerned, there was only one source, one source of divine revelation, and that is the Word of God. But today, brethren and sisters, our community faces another threat. Yes, I treat it like witchcraft, I treat it like necromancers, I treat it like those who look to the stars. The thought that in fact, an experience that a person might have, having been associated with some Pentecostal or advanced fundamentalist sect that is involved in the areas of maybe Holy Spirit power, as they believe, who can then come and tell me, I have seen a vision, I know it's right, and if you pray about it, you will know it's right too. Another form of witchcraft. That which is right, brethren and sisters, is only that which we can demonstrate according to the law and the testimony of almighty gods. If it is not demonstrable in that source, it is not tenable as divine revelation. And worse still, what can happen is that some of our members can be deluded to think that, well, if there are other people who experience these kind of feelings from above, a wonderful ecstasy, a feeling of warmness with Jesus, an uttering of the sounds from their mouth which is actually unintelligible gibberish, but nevertheless said to be the sounds of talking to God in spirits, here is the evidence of another source of divine approval. And if we were then to say the next stage on, well, if these people out here who believe in the Trinity and the devil and then we go to heaven when we die and everything else is a deviance of Christian theology today, but yet they have an acceptance before God, then why is doctrine so important? And so witchcraft breaks down rational understanding of the word of God. It's that area, brethren and sisters, that in the law of Moses, God considered vibrantly important because if there was another source of divine revelation like a witch claims to have, then now you have denuded the power of almighty God's word. And if you do that, you will eventually destroy your children and you may as well pick them up and throw them into the mouth of Malach and incinerate them. And that's what we would do, brethren and sisters, if we broke down the standards of doctrinal understanding and belief in the word that we have today. That is ascertainable by a rational process of understanding and keeping the words of God. If we remove that, we have no peg for our faith, we have no viable source for belief, we have no communicable record to spread to the world with the gospel. And that is why, that is why you can't suffer a witch to live. No, that's not a law for us to take away the lives of witches. It was a law to Israel that within their community they should not permit a witch to do her work and to ensure that she did not do her work, they had to destroy her. But the ecclesia today, brethren and sisters, is such that we should ensure that in our communities anything else but the clear word of God does not take on any sense of divine revelation or any gesture of divine approval. And that's what that law was getting. There is only one source of divine revelation and everything must be established upon that. And if God says, if they speak not according to this light and to this law and to this testimony, it is because there is no light in them. Whatever they say, whatever they say they experience, whatever they claim to believe, it has no essence of efficacy for us if it is not according to this word. So there shall not suffer a witch to live. And God did not want to see his people destroyed by this. Ultimately, hundreds and thousands of Jewish people lost their lives in the invasions of Assyrians and of Babylonians and of Romans that came against their lands because Israel refused to acknowledge the power of this word. And therefore, witchcraft took them over. At the time of Christ, what was he battling with? What was he talking about when he had to talk about the problem of healing a person? They talked about Christ and said, oh, well, he does this by the power of the Elzebub. The Elzebub? The God of Ekron? As if the God of Ekron was a reality? Was Israel preaching the God of Ekron was a reality? Yes, they were preaching that. Where did they get that from? They got it from the Canaanites, they got it from the Babylonians, and they also got the immortal soul from the Babylonians. Look in the Jewish writings, look in the Jewish scripture, the Hebrew Bible, there is no mention of immortal souls. Why then did they believe in the days of Christ? Because then they had taken the Greek philosophies and the Babylonian philosophies and they came to believe in the Hades and the nether worlds as well. How did they get in that state? By using sources other than the word of truth as the knowledge of God. And that shows us the danger, brethren and sisters, that we have to look at today. Well, he then goes on to tell us in Exodus 22 about the beasts, and he says, Whosoever lies with the beast shall surely be put to death. Of course, this would be about the most immoral of the illegitimate sexual practices of the people of Israel, but this was bred amongst the societies in which they lived and moved. In Sodom and Gomorrah, in the terrible ritual rites of the Canaanites and of those others who came into the land, beasts were involved, bestiality, other incredible forms of that which God hates as abomination. And thus, he says, anybody who does this must also be utterly destroyed. This would bring in the very basis characteristics of that which would deprive Israel from their basic morality before God and destroy their heart and soul in the midst of that community. And hence God would judge it in this way. Well, from here, brethren and sisters, we see now another point of a law that God made to them in verse 21. Notice this as a sense of an empathy. Verse 21, that thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Whilst you were slaves in the land of Egypt, you, of course, were given much oppression, much vexation of spirit. Should you therefore retaliate as if you feel you must be somehow revenged because of this period that you went through? Not according to God's law. That experience should not have given you aggression. That experience should have given you sympathy and understanding. And yet it was Christ who said, render not evil for evil. It was Christ who said, if thou be smitten on one cheek, turn to him the other also. Look what the law is saying. If you were caused to be put into slave ship, let that become to you a reason for feeling the position of someone else that they were in. Not a reason for you to seek opportunity for revenge on what position you had before. Empathy, brethren and sisters, means to stand in the shoes of someone else. Sympathy means that you stand in your shoes and take pity on the person who's in the other shoes. It can be condescending. It can be distant. Sympathy is feeling for that person over there that empathy is getting in his shoes with him and feeling what he's feeling. There it is in the law of Moses. There was the moral contact there of loving your neighbor as yourself. Did Christ really give anything new? Or did he rather bring a new concentration upon old ethics that were there for many hundreds of years? Here is an ethic, brethren and sisters, we need to consider in our own communities. Often because we feel deprived in some way, even as a young person. We later on might seek to lash out against that and maybe deprive other young people of situations. Many things in our lives we have to question, but God's ethical principle remains strong. Now notice in verse 22 here, he says, Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict them at any wise, and they cry it all unto me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with a sword, and your wives, and your widows, and your children shall be left fatherless. Why was God so concerned about widows? And fatherless children? Because, brethren and sisters, God saw himself as a father and as a husband. He said to Israel, I am your husband, but you have played the harlots. He calls Israel a father, as he says in Jeremiah, he says, he has been a father unto us, says Jeremiah. God is a father, and he's a husband. In other words, he is the male to secure the interests of the wife and the children. So God appreciates how great that responsibility is. Well, we as people of a society where we also understand as males the responsibility as a husband to provide for the wife or with the children to provide a source of constant welfare, keeping, and education for them. If you take the male out of their lives, then there is some deprivation. Well, says the women's liberation community, no, there's no deprivation at all. We go out and do exactly the same thing that we want to do. You see, they have changed the role structure, and in fact they earn the desserts of that too. But look at the principle of God's life working with us. Christ Jesus himself, I think it was in Matthew 23, that he speaks to the scribes and the Pharisees, and he says, well unto you scribes and Pharisees, for you oppressed widows' houses. What were they doing? Playing upon the widow. The widow didn't have a male to defend her, to defend her in court, to defend her with any form of self-defense. And so they played upon the widows' houses. Why? So that they might drip them dry of all their material resources. The same also as Christ had repudiated the practices of the scribes and the Pharisees there, who they would come upon a young man who would say, well, I don't want to support my parents. And so they would say, well, why not? Because, well, perhaps I can put this money into the treasury instead. Oh, well in that case it's all right, you don't have to support your parents. And so this law of Korban came in, you see, that substitutes, give the money to the church, give the money to the system of Israel's temple offerings, and of course it liquidates any moral responsibility you have towards your father and your mother. Of course this was directly against the commandment number five of the Ten Commandments. And we can see how they rationalized the choice of doing this. And now instead of seeing the widows were people who particularly need a form of help and survival, here we find that the Jewish leaders in Israel were instead plaguing the widows' house. They got all they could in the treasury to build up their own power and prestige before the people. But what did James say about this? Look over in James chapter one. James' definition of what pure religion really is before God. He says in verse 26, If any man among you seems to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but the seed of his own heart, this man's religion is bad. Pure religion had undefiled before God, and the father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Again the two groups, the fatherless and the widows. And this was called pure religion. This had the sense of a man seeking the good of his neighbor in devotion to his God in his most pure state is to put himself in the position of a child without a father and a wife without a breadwinner. What was the good of any religion unless it could be seen in practical sacrifice where it's needed? As James also says earlier on in the chapter, well here's the occasion, or rather chapter two he says, here's a case where one comes to you at the door, he desperately needs food, he's hungry, he's starving, he's cold. And you say, well brother, nice to see you. Be ye warm and filled with the spirit of the truth. Oh, I've got an appointment for the meal now. See you later. And you slam the door instead. You see, this is why God had placed under the law of Moses such an important dimension of personal responsibility. What's the good of worshiping God, says James. Even the madmen, the maniacs say, I believe in God. So what's that make you? If we believe that the truth means something, let's put it into application. Let's strive to see that that word of truth is going to mean something to God, not just to us. It's not a delightful philosophy. It's not just a nice ideology that you can demonstrate is true. It's not just a truth that you go to the platforms and debate the errorers with. It is something that transposes itself into our bodies, through our hearts because we feel for people. Because we make their concerns our concerns. And then for those who might be bereft of some particular need, some kindness, some love, some affection, some security, we can give it to them. But remember, keep yourselves unspotted in the world. In the process whereby we can give ourselves to the needs of others, there can also be hidden traps in it. We can become involved emotionally with those people, which can be hazardous. We must be careful and prudent in what and how we do it. We can become involved in their lives to an extent that the uniqueness of our life and the truth can be detracted. And instead we might as well put on the uniform of the Salvation Army than dress for the meeting of a Sunday morning. You see, all these things, brethren, are part of living the truth. Where the moral integrity of the truth becomes a way of life that shows that God is in us. And that's why God had said to the Hebrews when he took them out of that land of Egypt. He says, I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a God. Because that relationship can only work when we put our hearts and our minds and our actions at one with God and with his character and the beautiful qualities of a loving father. All of these things should come to us as his children and therefore we should do the things that our father does. That's the family characteristic. But if we forget that, brethren, what is the good of religion? We can become tinkling cymbals, sounding shells, where we listen to our own lovely voices. Where we simply go and make euphemism and lovely comments about how great God is and how great we are. Instead of talking about how great the needs are of others. This is the power of the law of Moses. And it's these great morals that Christ never took away. And it's these lessons that we most often forget because we too, like Israel, have bad memories and we lose sight of the struggle against the old man of the flesh in here. Let's watch him. He's ready to destroy us as he destroyed Israel.

Transcript

The law of Moses was of course known only to Israel, it was only intended for Israel. The law of Moses was something that was not Moses' law as such, it was not there because Moses brought it. Moses was simply the vehicle through which that law was created and brought there upon the people. So Israel was the community unto which God had addressed himself more so than any other nation around him, because this community was one community that he said, I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a God, and thus shall you become part of my family and part of my name, as we shall see in this chapter we look at this morning in chapter 23. Here he was giving to Israel now a series of laws that involved moral responsibility in judgments. This was an area where frequently of course mankind does create travesties of justice, where because he does not give a totally impartial approach to judgments, he therefore has his mind diverted away from the power of justice before the people. So in the 23rd chapter he gives to us here now these laws concerning the falsehood and the injustice that can emerge, and look how important these laws are in terms of making society operate as basically the fabric that keeps those people together. Verse one we read in chapter 23 of Exodus. Thou shalt not raise a false report, put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Here the expression says that you shall not spread a false report. The word false there means a report that is incorrect, that is vain, that has nothing behind it, it has no substance. You shall not spread abroad a report that has no substance, and put not thine hand to the wicked to be an unrighteous witness, or literally a witness of silence. Now this is very important for Israel as a nation, and also brethren and sisters, it's very important for us as a people. Spreading, spreading a vain senseless and substance less report. I only wish we could read those words more carefully when we hear some of the things we go around that we do. Christodolphians of course are a very close community. Because we are close we take a very great interest in each other and that is of course very important also. It's important that we consider each other's welfare. The circumstances of life that might affect us, whether it be good or whether it be bad, are usually points of interest between our community. This is good, but let's notice one of the problems that emerge with it. Often because our Christadelphian communication is so intense, we become more intense than perhaps we should about talking about what is affecting our community. Or did you hear about Sister Such and Such? Or did you hear that Brother Such and Such did this? And it becomes that sometimes, which I fearfully observe, is that we tend to be wanting to see as if we are going to be the ones that are keeping up with the latest information about the gossip of our community. Sometimes I hear things said about brethren and or sisters which rather strikes me as thinking, well I wonder if that report is true. I wonder if that report has been checked out. After all there's a sister's name at stake behind this report. The thing is, the more juicier some kinds of pieces of information seem to be, the more they are likely to be propagated through our community. We've got a very efficient community. As it might well be said, if you want to get something to somebody really fast, you send a telegram. Faster still, you use the telephone. But the fastest method is to telechrist the Delphian and it gets there quicker. We have a very good grapevine system, don't we? And this is because we are interested in one another and this is good. But brethren, don't use that communication system to spread reports that have no substance and no value for the person about whom that report is referring to. This was a law in Israel. It was a very important law in Israel. And God said, don't spread it. If you spread it, I will see that this is creating a witness of injury against my people. And so God was very sure that he put that down in here as part of his law. Do not spread it. If a person did, there would obviously be some judgment upon by the judges of Israel. The Elohim that here administered the affairs of judgment before the people. But in our community, it's not judged, is it? There's no control upon gossip, upon words of injury that might be spread, upon unkind words that affect brethren and sisters' personality and their respectability. And the point is to bring a false report against someone is almost to bring a sword against someone because destroy a man's reputation and you destroy his life. Who will trust him? Who will give him any honor? Who will give him some trust that, yes, what he says might be true? To vilify a man is to crucify his personality and his respectability before others. And it's a shame to do that. It's like killing somebody. And so the law also said there, put not your hand to be a witness of violence, someone who will witness against another person to bring violence upon them. For what purpose? Maybe for political expediency, maybe for envy, maybe for hatred, maybe because we just can't be bothered thinking about what we ought to do in justice and truth and goodness to some person. Instead, we think only of how we can create injury and show our power in what we do. Some terribly injurious things have been said in the past, shamefully so, against the brethren. And once, of course, that fire starts and we light the match and it starts moving out, it grows in power, it grows in energy, it grows in furiousness of heat. And that little tongue that started it all has created a mammoth problem for individuals and the eclosure of God. And that is a very great shame. So he moves in, in verse two now, to talk about the multitudes. And he says now, verse two of Exodus 23, thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in accords to the kind after many to rest judgment. Now, let's just give a bit of a paraphrase there. Following a multitude, he says, don't follow the multitudes to do evil. And neither, he says, nor shall you bear witness at a trial so as to abide with a multitude and therefore pervert justice. The multitude, it's a very powerful pressure group upon people, isn't it? Numbers, the numbers game, the numbers issue, very powerful. I guess we can see this also at our own ecclesias. True, we have within our society a democratic process of the governing of our autonomous communities called ecclesias. Brother Roberts, in his very wise book called The Guide for the Establishment and Performance of Ecclesias, The Ecclesial Guide as it's called, then in this little book he outlines for us a sequence whereby we can act towards others to preserve the majority rule in ecclesial life but also to preserve love in such a community. We can nevertheless, within our communities, see that because the majority is thinking this way, that we'll go with the majority. But in fact, as the wise proverb has said, if 20 million people believe a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing. And if we've got 800 million Catholics who believe that Mary is up in heaven now and to be worshiped, then does that mean it should be believed? You see, the majority does not indicate true. It indicates only one thing. That's what the majority think. That's all it tells us. Now here we have an occasion to make a decision. A decision may be on a brother's welfare. Maybe a brother is called in question in regard to his status in fellowship. We have to make a decision about him. The majority of the ecclesiast says, oh, well, I think we should withdraw fellowship from him. Well, what's your decision? Should we make a decision if we don't know the facts? Should we simply go with the majority and say, well, if I stand up, I'm going to be odd man out, so I won't say anything in defense of that brother? It's a big pressure, isn't it? A pressure upon individuals who might not want to be associated with somebody who appears to be out of favor, lest we end up out of favor also. The kind of decisions we might make at ecclesial business meetings, when we don't vote anything, do we see what everybody else is voting first? Or we're seeing how brother such and such votes and I'll follow him. Or if we see how the rest of the family in the meeting votes and we follow the party line. It's a shame when that happens. It is really a perversion of justice. But because we are human beings living in a human society of which we have all the consequent affections and allegiances that exist within societies and pressure groups, we tend to follow it. The law said, don't. Don't follow a multitude for evil. And he says, do not force to arise a case of a perversion of justice simply because you're following the leader. Remember also the scripture said, broad is the way that leads to destruction and many there are that go therein. The many there is clearly condemnable. What about our lives? What about our experiences in the truth? Many of those things can also be condemnable if we simply follow a multitude to do something. And after all, the reason why some of us may choose to adopt a certain decision is because it represents less work on our part to adopt that decision. Remember this. The law also said to Israel, if you hear a false report, then go and diligently make inquiry. Ask questions to see if it's so. Question all people involved in it. If you have found the matter to be true and the accusation to be sure, then go into action. That was what the law said. Sometimes, brethren, we go into action at the smallest of the pieces of evidence and say so. And justice is thereby perverted. Now he mentions another dimension in verse three. Neither he says, shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. That is, neither shall you be partial to a poor man in his trial just because he is poor. Again, the tendency to support the underdog, isn't it? We have legal hassles over the poor man who takes his case to court and the rich organizations that might be oppressing him. The power of oppression is very great with some of the most powerful authorities in this world today. Corporations with millions of dollars behind them that are able to create a great legal witness, a legal punch when it gets to the courtroom so that the poor man, in fact, has no chance because he can't afford the best of the lawyers, solicitors, those who will go and argue his case and bring out legal precedents. In this case, he says, there is a tendency also for others to support the man who's the small man, you know, like supporting the David in the David and Goliath battle. There might be a tendency for us also to say, well, here is this brother in the Ecclesia. This brother is very well off, you know, financially he's quite comfortable, but he still contributes a great measure of support to the truth. And there's another brother over here who has a dispute with him and he doesn't have any money. And we tend to say, well, let's get the rich guy instead. And so we tend to think that we can support the poor man because he's poor, just because he's poor, irrespective of the issues that are at stake for judgments. That, of course, is another privacy of justice. Of course, in our brotherhood, we have to make decisions frequently when we must use justice as the basis of decision in correctly inquiring into the matter, in seeing what the problem is, in digesting the problem, in investigating potential solutions to that problem, instead of setting up the party line. Very unfortunately, Ecclesias do this. They have groups of brethren and sisters that think in particular ways. Some who will yield more to this kind of view and others who will go over to the other side to another kind of view. And therefore we end up with this canning of the results in the Ecclesia almost along party lines. The political side of the Ecclesia work, very unfortunate, isn't it, that it happens. That we cannot resist the tendency to be clear in our own thinking, logical in what we see, not just to follow what others see, and how important that is to make our Ecclesias operate properly. So he says now in verse 4, he brings the dimension now again to the individual responsibility and says, if thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again, returning thou shalt return it. That's what the Hebrew says. Well, you're walking up the street there, and you see Jim Carter's cow going down the other way. And you say, ah, that's Jim Carter's cow. Oh, but he's my enemy. He's my, oh, I'm glad he's lost that cow. That'll get him back for the time when he said something to my cow. And so we look for moments of retaliation. So we sit back and we gloat when we see it happen. But the law said you can't do that. You can't do that for your brother, he says. But he says, what about your enemy? Your enemy, if your enemy's cow gets out, go and get it and take it back. Returning you shall return it. And if you see the ass of him that hates you lying under his burden, and would it forbear to help him, he says, thou shalt surely help him. As he says there, thou shalt not leave it to him alone, but you'll surely get out there and you'll help him release that ass from its burden. Imagine the scene. Here is the ass. It's overburdened. The load is falling off. And as the ass goes down the street here, coming up towards you, you're going the other way, of course, on your own business. This ass is falling under the loads. And its owner, who has spoken words against you, you see, he hates you. He's spoken against you. And you see him like that. What's your reaction? Well, I hope it all falls off on the ground. Hope it costs him a couple of hours in time, too, to get it back on again. This is so easy. It's like sort of seeing your neighbor next door with whom you've had frequent quarrels because he won't turn down his television set at night, hazard going till two and three in the morning watching these crazy midnight movies. And because he disturbs you, you pass him out on the street there. And he's got a flat tire, you see, and his jack's broken on his car. And you say, serves him right. You won't turn that television down. That's God's judgment on him. Easy to say, isn't it? Because we can sometimes justify things in the name of gods, can't we? Oh, it's not me doing anything wrong. Just that God's eventually, he says, vengeance is mine. I'll repay. There it is. Vengeance. It's getting him back. Well, that'll teach you. Now he'll turn his television set down. Well, let's look at it logically. Would he turn his television set down if you walked by grinning like a cheshire cat, say, hi there. And he is in trouble if his jack is broken and he can't fix his car's broken tire. I would suggest that your next night might see the television left on all night and he goes to bed. You see, how do we deal with the enemy? This is an issue which is most important. You know, the law of God told us how to deal with the enemy, how to use moral responsibility to those people who otherwise would try and destroy us if they could. What should we do to them? How ought we to treat them? I just want to take you over for a moment to Proverbs 25, where here we have an illustration of what to do, the best way to deal with the enemy. Of course, these words are all belonging, remember, to the law of Moses. We are in Proverbs 25. It says here, concerning your enemy, if thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty, you give him water to drink. For thou shall heap coals of fire upon his head, and Yahweh shall reward thee. Now, what's this point about getting a bucket of coals and pouring it over his head? You see, what this is here, brethren, is a piece of the most adept psychology that you can use against your enemy. If your enemy hates you, and if he has done evil against you, and you do something evil to him, the psychology is very simple. He simply says, well, I feel quite justified in doing that evil to him because look what he's now doing to me. You reinforce his feeling of animosity towards you because you've done something evil to him, so therefore he feels more justified in doing something evil in the first place. Now, if you do something kind to him, what happens, says the Proverb, you heap coals of fire upon his head. What it's saying in the Hebrew is literally this, you produce the penetrating pain of a burning shame and guilt in him, so on his head he feels so terribly pain that he has given you evil, and you have given him goods, and that's a big difference. Now he doesn't feel justified for having done something evil to you. Now he feels the heel that shouldn't have done something evil to you. You have consumed him with guilt and shame because he's an ordinary human in most circumstances, and he will understand his feelings and he will respond by saying, oh, what have I done that for? Look what he's done to me. He could have really taken me to the cleaners, but he didn't. And what do you do? Well, if you really want to hurt your enemy, that's how you hurt him. Don't make him feel happy, make him feel sad, but in the process of making him feel sad, you destroy your enemy and turn him into your friend, and that's a better proposition of relationship, isn't it? So you see, the law of Moses was just not moral ethics only. It had to do vitally with what concerns the relationships of individuals and how to keep the fabric of the Jewish society together to make them the ecclesia of God. After all, if God says, I take you to me for a people and you become my sons and daughters, he wants the sons and daughters to treat each other like he would treat them. And therefore in this relationship, if in fact you do good for these people, if you help them, it turns enemies into friends, and that's vitally important. Now he goes in again now to talk a little about justice back in Exodus 23 and in verse 6 where he says, thou shalt not rest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. That is, thou shalt not pervert the justice due to the poor in his cause. Now you can't get lost in two extremes here. You don't support the poor because he's poor, and you don't simply go against the poor because he happens to be a person that is less acceptable to the majority of your people in the society which you are parts. What he says here is, you look clearly and do not pervert justice and do not become unbalanced, be in one direction or the other, be just in your decisions, be conclusive in your analysis, and above all make sure that you serve the cause of God in what is done, not the cause that you want out of the decision you make. Whether it's going to please you down the river or not doesn't matter. It's whether what happens to this brother and sister now, that's what's justice must not be perverted. Keep thee far from a false matter, he says in verse 7, that the innocent, and he says, and the innocent and the righteous slay thou not, for I will not justify the wicked. Keep well away from matters of falsehood, and God addresses, accuses, witnesses, and judges in this way. Make sure that you consider carefully that you do not have anything to do with something that is not true. And sometimes that, brethren and sisters, that means we must do a little more analysis too. Sometimes we say, well if brother such and such says that, it must be true. After all, he's a very respectable brother, a recording brother, he's got the raw information at his fingertips, well I'll just take what he says to be true, and I won't bother reading any of the ecclesial correspondence myself, I'll leave it to him to tell me what's in there, and he can make his judgments on it. Well that is giving to one brother an enormous responsibility. An ecclesial business meeting is one of the greatest factors that have preserved the autonomy of our ecclesial organizations, because an ecclesial business meeting is where every brother and sister has the right to question anything in that ecclesia, and there is no totalitarian powers, and no member of the arranging brethren can stand up and say, well look you're not an AB, so you can't decide this matter. The business meeting is where everything is level and open, and you can question anything you wish about that ecclesia, of course using wisdom and care to do so. That is a great system, and it must not be abused, and that privilege must be preserved above all, but we ensure that all the decisions that are made are as just as possible, and always in the interests of the majority of that ecclesia. Sometimes we're going to be in the majority, sometimes we'll be in the minority, but either way we must accept that justice must first be done. Do not let self-interest affect the outcome of a decision. We all do that when we shouldn't, and it hurts and harms our brethren and sisters, and it works towards the destruction of the system by which our ecclesias are preserved, by mutual love, respect, justice, mercy, and truth. So do not support anything that is false. Well in verse 8 he says, talks now about the bribe, and he says, and thou shalt take no gift, a bribe that means, because he says the bribe binds the wise, it blinds the wise and perverts the words of the righteous people. So the bribe here, translated actually as such on a number of occasions, becomes a fact that a person now, because he's influenced like this, he has become blind. It's been unfortunate times in the past when I have heard discussions concerning ecclesial business meetings, and one brother says, well look, if you'll support me in this, I'll support you in that, and that's a bribe. It's nothing short of a bribe. It's saying, well you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, it means if you will help me here, I will help you there, because I want to get this, I'm not too interested in the outcome of yours, I'll support you there, because it doesn't affect me. But I want you to support me over here in my area, and therefore you get the context of a bribe set up in which your clear mind for justice, mercy, and truth has been put aside. And I feel that's a shame when that happens. Every issue and decision, brethren, made in the judgments of our community, the spiritual Israel today, are to follow the morals and at least the ethics of the truth. True, Christ didn't say this, did he? Christ did not say to us, don't go to a business meeting and if a brother says to you, well you support me in this and I'll support you in that, don't agree to it. He doesn't say that, does he? Christ in many ways extends the power of the law into the inner part of a man so he can appreciate dimensions of law which are far higher and stronger than anything the law of Moses said. But in some areas it does not, and that's why here this law is left as part of our Bible today, because we need that. We need that to pick up areas where we might forget the power of Christ's words. Christ's words were very clear, do unto others as you have them do unto you. That's very clear, but we don't know sometimes how to interpret it. And that's why these sort of little helpful hints do give us some assistance, don't they? Never follow the tit-for-tat proposition, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Do not rest judgment with that kind of wheeling and dealing. It is not right, but it happens and we become blind in our judgments. Israel were told they must not do it. Well in verse 9 he says, verse 9 now through in a few verses, he talks now about the stranger and he says, thou shalt not oppress a stranger for you know the heart of a stranger, you understand the mind, the feelings, the expressions of a slave in a strange country. You were slaved yourselves once, you understand that. Again the point emerges from yesterday, the empathy of the slave, knowing what it's like to be a slave must surely teach us to understand the mind of those who might be our slaves. It doesn't give us license to injure and to abuse slaves because we might once have been abused, it gives us a responsibility not to do so. And therefore says the law, don't you do it to your slaves. Well now he introduces here a remarkably well intense law that has to do with with the mercy of God seen in its most extensive direction. Look at these verses here, verse 10 onwards, and six years silt thou sow thy land and shall gather in the fruits thereof, but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still. What's he mean here? Literally from the Hebrew he says, let it drop and abandon it. That's the land he says, and that the poor of thy people may eat, and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with the vineyard and the olive yard also. What an amazing law this was. Today we try and tax our grounds all we can. Keep feeding back in all the minerals we're taking out, super phosphate, everything else, we pour it back in the land to make that land work hard for us. Here says the Lord, his judgments, work the land for six years then leave it. Leave it grow. Not only is the land going to recuperate, but what the land does grow of its own accord is going to help to feed the poor in your community. And once the poor have taken off what they need, put your beasts into it also. Look how God even thinks of the beasts, the beasts of burden, those creatures which are under the control of mankind. And again the law said, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. What a beautiful, merciful consideration. God is concerned about animals so that the ox is able to eat while it works and get its energy. We are not allowed to abuse animals or people. Sometimes we need an RSPCA to tell us that. Well society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Such a society like that has sometimes to bring to mind the fact that you don't treat animals with cruelty. True animals are under our control, we know that. But God didn't do it. He told man to administer the animals. But the thing is, if you beat the dog up in the backyards, probably you'll beat your wife up tomorrow. Because you see, if you cannot think sensitively about an animal, a defenseless animal, then how can you think sensitively about people also? If we are violent towards animals, do we imagine that violence will only be towards animals? Perhaps the violence upon the animals is there, the poor animal gets it because we're not prepared to be violent to a human being because that's got more ramifications to it. And so we can end up getting stuck into animals because we want to get rid of our frustrations and our furies. God didn't think that way. God even thought that the land needed its rest. And a land is totally an inanimate thing. It is simply mineral, it is simply vegetable, it has no life, it has no pain, it has no being of suffering. But you see, if we understand from our mind's point of view, what God considers to be just and good and kind, then that will be seen in every respect of our lives. That is the point, brethren. We cannot expect to treat with violence that community and turn around and smile nicely at the next community. Well, that's hypocrisy and it certainly isn't growth in the mind of God. Well, he goes on and talks about other things here. He talks about stranger again, of course, talking as he does in verse 13 and all these things he says that you should be circumspect, you should be cautious, he says, you should be careful and make no mention of the names of other gods, neither let them be heard out of thy mouth. Well, you see, other strangers that were in the lands were those who had brought in most commonly the names of other gods. So he says, you do not treat those strangers with violence, but you shall not mention the names of their gods either. You shall not flow towards their godly way, which they think is godly. You must not mention them. They're not to be heard out of your mouth. You are not to bless, nor are you to curse for these gods. And therefore, he says, you will preserve my position in caution and circumspection. Notice how that word is introduced there, be cautious, be careful, be circumspect. Why? Because in the saints of God and to Israel at this time, they had to use caution. In other words, they had to use discretion. They had to be people that could use intelligence and analyze things without necessarily going to the law and saying, I can do this or I can't do that. Look at it carefully, weigh the matter up and see what the demand is on you. This becomes God's remedy to us of how we can treat better the people of our community and work more lovingly towards relationships which foster God as our father and we as his children. Well, he talks now about the festivals in verse 14, part of this very important book of the Covenants, and says three times, shall you assemble all the males before me? He says, you shall have a feast. There shall be a great pilgrimage feast down to the appointed place of my alterings and offerings rather from the altars in verse 15, and thou shall keep the feast of the unleavened bread, the hamatzot, the unleavened bread. He says, because I wanted you a command of thee that at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it, he says, thou camest out of Egypt, and none shall appear before me empty. You'll come, you'll bring forth the unleavened bread, he says. Then there will be the feast of the harvest, the feast of first fruits, the Pentecost or the feast of weeks. And thirdly, there would be the feast of the in-gathering, the feast of tabernacles held at the end of the year. Three occasions should all these males come before God and three occasions where this great feast be celebrated that you might bring before me these feasts which acknowledge my work amongst you. Well, the feast of unleavened bread, a feast recognizing that God is the one who saves us. He saves us out of Egypt and Egyptian oppression. He brings us before his altar and he accepts us. Then the feast of the first fruits. The first fruits belong to God. The first fruits of everything belong to God. The first out of the the firstborn. All of these first belong to God and we must give them and dedicate them to God. Under the law, Israel were taught that principle. The very best of our produce comes before God and God wants the very best from us also. He wants the best of our time, the best of our energies, the best of our labors. And very often, brethren and sisters, we rise in the day and we get involved in everything in that day that we have to do and we remember God's just before we go to bed. We remember God and we give to him our tiredest exhausted hours of the day and we often start a prayer of when our heads on the pillow because we haven't really found time to pray before that and there are very few said to prayers started on the pillow and yet we can give God the very worst of our time or the very best of our time. The first fruits belong to God and he also says in the feast of the end gathering here the feast of tabernacles that once we have harvested the good works that God has given to us the good substance of his fruitful growth in this earth let us come to God with thanks and praise for all the blessings we have received that's what he asks of us again our moral responsibility before God by showing to him that everything of which we have is derived from him and we should give our thanks to him for every detail of it that's what builds love between families isn't it the parents and the children the children have to learn to say thank you and as you're training the child you say to the child or say thank you and the child shakes their head or says nothing you say you don't get this unless you do say thank you and the child learns to say thank you human beings are a bit the same aren't they this is what's going to happen in the kingdom age you see the nation that doesn't come up to worship the Lord in Zion they'll get no rain and so this becomes the force now of saying well if there's no rain I don't eat I didn't say thank you well I better get up there and say thank you or I won't have anything to eat next year you see the nations have to be trained the same way Israel was trained the same way we have to be trained the same way our children have to be trained we have to show them what thank you means saying thank you by the feasts of God before Israel at this time this is what saying thank you meant and if Israel didn't learn that they'd of course never learn that God expected from them a response for his goodness that he gave unto those people come over now to um to verse 19 exodus 23 he says here the first of the first fruits of thy lands thou shall bring unto the house of the Lord thy gods the first of the first fruits you will bring unto the house of the Lord thy God that means that we would must we must bring to God to his house the very best that we can and hence highlighting the point already mentioned God's house is his ecclesia is it not and we have to bring to his ecclesia the very best that we can the best of our education that we have the best of the resources God has blessed us with the best of our waking hours the moments when we believe that we are best suited for ecclesial work we've got to bring to God's holy temple within that ecclesia the best of our kindness our sympathy our thankfulness our love our responsiveness all of those things belong in God's house instead of feeding ourselves at home on everything good that we can get and then throw along the scraps to the accretion of a sunday morning to take no care nor thought for the needs of that meeting or the financial requirements that the truth has in order to continue the work of a light stand in this area or that area all this is vitally important but let us look finally at another point here which he drops in almost as if to say well what on earth does this mean thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk why say that thou shalt not boil up a kid in his mother's milk very interesting law isn't it why would this be so why would this slide in here as having any sense of moral responsibility or any restraint upon israeli in any way why this peculiar law well to analyze it a little bit more is of course to find what become the keys of understanding look at what is happening the mother the mother gives birth to a kid that kid grows off the mother's milk and then you take that kid and the mother's milk and you boil the kid to death in his mother's milk well it's sort of reversing things a bit isn't it it's telling us here do destroy the young by that which is intended to nurture them in life an illustration the wicked sons of eli we read about them in samuel they would see the offerings that the israelites would bring unto them and the offerings of meats the wicked sons would plunge in the three-pronged flesh hook and take out the meat what they pulled out from that from meat became theirs and instead of burning the fat of the altar when they would bring the the fat up they would say give us of the fat or we'll we'll take it by force from you instead of burning it at the altar of yaweh so what had happened was that the altars of yaweh which should have become the means of life and the first principles of life to israel had now assumed the dimensions of death the first principles of the law of moses were being overthrown because here these people were not being nurtured in life by the lawful offerings they were being destroyed by so the people hated the altars of god that's a shame that happens they were destroying the people with that which should have given them life another example over in the days of christ let's go to matthew 23 for a moment here of course the lord jesus christ is making his tirades against the profligate rulers of israel verse 13 he says to the jewish leaders but well under you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men for you neither go in yourselves neither suffer ye them that are entering to go therein notice verse 15 well do you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte and when he is made you make him twofold more the child of hell than he than than yourselves what's the point again notice now in verse 23 he says well unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you pay tithe of mint and innocent common and you've omitted the weightier matters of the law judgment mercy and faith these you ought not to these ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone ye blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel well unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because you may clean the outside of the cup and of the planter he says but within you're full of extortion and excess these things were what israel was doing what were they doing using the first principles of the law by which they should have been given life and instead it gave them death as blind guides to the blind and both fall into the pit and destroy themselves this is so easy to do to take up the first principles of the truth which we are told by the apostle when he writes of the hebrews is the milk of the word of god he tells them that in hebrews chapter 5 he laments the fact that they should have been having strong me but now they had needed the milk of the word of and he says these be the first principles of the law of god and they were destroying them those first principles which should have given israel their love and holiness in the truth was being destroyed instead of giving them life it was destroying the jewish people themselves so thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk to do that you see to see the kid in his mother's milk means that one becomes insensitive to the principle and so the law was made brethren that the principle might stick like we teach our children many different little acts to perform in order that they can understand principles concepts in their minds yes you must share those those candies with your brother and sister why because you must learn to give them candies but mommy they had candies yesterday yes i know they had candies yesterday but you give them one today because you have to learn to give so we treat our children in such a way that we want to give them an experience in their lives that is going to help their little minds to gel to what the meaning of these principles really are and so we teach a child accounts by putting various blocks and pieces of fruit together they get the idea of of the notion the the idea of an abstract figure in their minds it grows by doing things with your hands and so by motor mechanism of education by teaching people to do things they learn things the whole of the law of moses was that to israel it was a school master unto them to bring them the grace they were children and the law was the school master but the law became that which was a cause of death and hatred and animosity in the in the kingdom of god at this time it was moving against their wholeness of life it was destroying them as christ says those very things that he had intended to give life were now giving death and see them the kid in his mother's milk is an example of using that to destroy the young which god had intended to give life with and how easily we can do the same thing if we brethren so distort the principles of the first fundamentals of the milk of god's word and if ever they're broken down and they sometimes come under fire quite heavily if ever we break down the defenses of the walls of our faith if ever we throw away a statement of we have broken down the walls of the defense of the truth by which first principles are retained in our community as a minimum requirement of truth not the maximum and if we throw that away we destroy the substance of the truth by which otherwise some will come to life and life immortal in the kingdom of god so just a little law like seething a kid in his mother's milk has got such a big lesson for us a lesson for us a lesson for israel a lesson to apply in our lives this is what the law meant the highest ideals of god's morality were to find their way through to the smallest customs of an agrarian-based society and that's important and god left it on that you and that me might come to understand the way whereby god deals with us that in the weightier matters of mercy justice and truth we might see the application of god's divine code of ethics and applied in the smallest places of our lives that we might please our gods that he might look upon us as his children and that he might take us to him as our father it's all brethren based on principles as simple as these

Transcript

We have seen some aspects of the law of Moses in our study today. Holy ethical principles were outlined to his people and under which society Israel had learned to be able to understand the sentiments of God's minds. God manifested his mind under his people in the codes contained in that covenant. That covenant itself was meant to be unto Israel a contrast between their natural failure as men and women of Adam's race and God's ultimate righteousness, which is seen of course in his son, but is seen also in God's righteous ethical codes. So we're able to see many of those laws had to do with an agrarian-based society. A society of domesticated people where domesticated animals were there and where they basically earned their living by tilling the ground, which they had inherited also as part of the treasure of God giving them that land to sojourn in so long as they worship God. Much of their laws were affecting their way of life with slaves, with their neighbors, with their children, with husbands and wives. And therefore in all of this we see the direction of God's holy and righteous code inviting them to consider very carefully what the mind of God was. And therefore how their behavior patterns had to be inspired not of fleshly thinking but of God's mind expressed to them in that code. We today do not have that code upon us as something we must obey in terms of living by the old covenant whereby we seek life by obeying law. This we do not do. The Lord Jesus Christ truly took up the old covenants and it was nailed to the stake when He Himself died to put away the weakness of the flesh. And what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and on account of sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Thus the work of the Lord Jesus Christ brought about the quintessence, the wonderful creation of the body of God's Word seen both in a covenant of promise and in the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. We find together the meeting place of God's glorious work expressed through a Son in whom was every vestige of the weakness of Adam but who was strengthened by every inherited factor of God being His Father. And then in the midst of His experience of life whilst the Son of God and the Son of Man battled together for a period of time the flesh was ultimately put aside having never reigned for one moment to produce sin in our Lord and the Son of God reigned supreme over the power of sin and death and thus He destroyed the devil in Himself. Now of course we have to destroy the devil in ourselves. The lust and affection to the flesh is that which constantly wars against the soul constantly inviting us to do things that are not in accordance with God's high moral structure of thinking and action. We can so often see that in the decisions we make and the mistakes that we make we are battling the weaknesses that we possess and ultimately it is only through the grace of God coming upon us that we might be able to stand acceptably before God's righteousness at the repearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now Galatians chapter 4 and verse 4 says In the fullness of time God senteth His own Son made under the law, made of a woman. Now what did He mean? In the fullness of time, when the time was ripe so there had to be a time when the ripeness of God's appearance of His own Son was there at the right time for mankind. After all we can really ask the question, can we not? To say well, why didn't Christ come instead of Moses? Why did we need a Moses? Why do we need a thousand year gap between Moses and Christ? Why didn't Christ come earlier? What does it mean in the fullness of time? We are told by that piece of information that Israel as a nation, that mankind as a society was as yet unprepared to receive the work and mission of the Lord Jesus Christ and for that reason He didn't appear. But what did appear was the law of Moses. Why? Well we've already discussed the reasons why a law came. That was that the people of God's choice, the Abrahamic seed did not understand what righteousness meant. They did not fully appreciate what the mind of God was. They did not appreciate the elements of God's mercy, His long-suffering, His kindness, His love, His considerateness for the people whose frame is weak and fleshly. These people had to learn something different. So the law of Moses came and codified a list of instructions to mankind by which He might measure His performance against that righteous code. And by that means He might come to understand the measure of His own failure, the weakness of the flesh and that He Himself could not stand before God. At the time of Israel, Israel with Christ, the Jewish people had believed, the Jewish leaders had believed that they had God all bottled up in the temple in Jerusalem. They believed that that place was holy and that the law of God was holy. And as long as Israel was there with the law of God in the temple, they themselves were holy by nature, intrinsically good, beyond question of righteousness. Christ had to point out a number of things to them. He had to demonstrate to them that no, God is not bottled up in the temple. God reigns and wishes to reign in the hearts of men and women. What kind of a heart should a man have? Look at Isaiah chapter 66 and verse 1. Thus saith the LORD Yahweh, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you are going to build for me? And where is the place of my rest? Says God, you don't build a temple for me and box me up in that temple and come in and visit me and then go away again and think that I don't know what you're doing or where you are or what you're thinking. That's the way the Catholic Church operates. It builds its huge temples. It incarcerates God in the personage of its priests and its cardinals. And you go along to them to meet with gods. You confess your sins to them. They confer upon you certain indulgences and they give you a key to get to heaven to know all your sins are forgiven. That's the incarceration of God. Where men sit in a temple of God saying that they are gods. But God says here, For all these things, he says, they're all the works of my hands. You haven't built me a house that I can dwell in. I own the universe, he says. But to this man will I look. Even to him that is poor and of the contrite spirits and that trembles at my words. The poor man? No, it doesn't really mean a man who is necessarily on the lower socioeconomic level. It means a man whose spirit is poor. A man who was not overloaded with his pride and his arrogance and his prejudice and his aggression. A man who does not have the great body of the spirit of a man like a horse has spirit in battle. That's a poor man. And to this man will I look, says God, he must be poor. He mustn't be arrogant and proud. But he has a contrite spirit. He confesses his sins before me. There is contrition in his heart. And when he looks at my words, he trembles. He trembles at the words of God because he sees the power of that word. And the power of that word guides his life in great delicacy as he seeks to do the will of his father. Now every Jew who was born under the law of Moses was taught one basic lesson that that law showed to him a code of righteousness which he could never of himself achieve. He knew that he broke the law. And on many occasions when he broke that law he could not offer sacrifice for it. What about David? He couldn't offer sacrifice for murder? He couldn't offer sacrifice for adultery? There was no sacrifice for those sins. So what was David's attitude? Oh Yahweh, against thee have I sinned. Have I sinned and done this evil? Purify me with hyssop. Cleanse me, I pray. Oh Lord, if I could give you sacrifice and offerings, I would do it. But it's not sacrifice and offerings that I have to give to thee. It is a crushed and broken spirit. The mentality of the people of Israel was not ready to receive Christ when Moses was there. They had to go through a period of a thousand years preparation whereby doing things with their hands and seeing lessons of life, their minds might be impressed and grow up and conceive of what God's righteousness really meant. So the Jewish people did not see the mind of God. They had to see the works of a child. Like as we've said before, the child by building things with its hands learns concrete and abstract thinking. So Israel had to bring along animals. The little lamb that the shepherd loved. He had to take that lamb. He had to put his head on that lamb. And his hand was on that lamb's head rather while that throat was slit. And he saw the blood gush forth and he had his own hand on the head of that animal. What did it tell him? It told him that that animal represented him. And that his hand was where the sin was done. That it was his head that caused it. So in the sacrificial lamb, he puts his hand where the animal's head, the head to the hand, the sin from thinking to action. And then the blood comes forth and he dies. He dies by symbol. And there was the beauty of that action. Every time he did that, he died by symbol. And he loved that lamb. It wasn't just one of a statistic of 20,000 lambs and sheep running around the world. We can pull any of them out and put them on a butcher's hook and it means nothing to the consumer of that meat or the person who kills it. But in those days, it was the best little lambs that the shepherd loved. And he took those little lambs and he offered them at Yahweh's altar. And then his hands knew what sin meant. If he thought about his action. And so for a thousand years, Israel had to learn by doing physical sacrifices what true sacrifice really meant. So that when Christ came, mankind was able to look at Christ and say, behold, the lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. And John was able to direct his people's attention to that man there because that man was going to do what every sacrifice under the law could not do. It couldn't take away sin. He'd only condemn the man for sin. And every day on the Day of Atonement, all the sins of the year were resurrected. And one great blood sprinkling took place in the holiest of holies to remind mankind that the sins were always there. Could the law give salvation? No, it couldn't. Because no law could save a man that condemned him for breaking it. And there was his problem. So what would he do? What would he do about this terrible state of condemnation? He's going to do what David did. Throw himself down on the ground and pray for the forgiveness of God. What was the law doing then? It was creating a truer consciousness of human failure, inadequacy, and weakness so that human pride, the spirit of human strength, and the arrogance of a man who believed he walks before his God in righteousness might be broken down and crushed up into little pieces. And then, then would he be in a position of mind to look towards his God and say, God, I'm a broken man. I need thy strength. And that will point, brethren and sisters, is the importance of why that law was there for a thousand years. You know, often brethren have asked the question, now, if we now have the sacrifice of Christ, if his offering is done away with law and sacrifice, why then, in the Kingdom Age, are we going to revive, as it were, a modified law of Moses with new offerings, a new sacrifice in a temple? Hasn't Christ finished with that? The key to this is the answer to the same question. Why did Moses come instead of Christ? Because the national mentality of a group of people were unready as yet to understand true internal sacrifice and to understand the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Well, if Israel, as a nation of God had already had the covenants of promise and had a great connection down through history with God and with his workings with the angels that have seen the angels and have personal visits with them and have heard much of God's revelation of works in this earth and saw the Red Sea part up and the glory of those miracles take place, they needed a thousand years of preparation for sacrifice. Well, what about ignorant nations amongst the Gentiles? They need the same sort of help. They need the same schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, except Christ's offering, instead of being looked forward to by the offerings of the law, will be in retrospect looking back to Christ. You see, that's why sacrifices in the age to come are necessary, not for the saints, but for an international community of people who are in ignorance of the whole works and ways of God, many of them still worshipping the gods of wooden stone. If Israel needed it, so also does the nations of this earth. And by the end of the thousand year period of the millennium, then the international consciousness of all people upon the face of this earth will be ready to meet the question, am I going to sacrifice with my Lord or am I not? Am I going to move out from the condemnation of Adam to the life and righteousness of Christ? And when that decision is made, then there's nobody left who has to be taught by the schoolmaster under the law any longer. So now sin and death can pass away. And finally, paradise is regained in a manner that paradise was never started off in. There will no longer be any death, no sin, nor possibility of sin amongst this people on the earth. Well that shows us the necessity of law. Now we bring law to the time of Christ. In the fullness of time, God sent forth His own Son, made of a woman and made under the law. He was of a woman because He was in Adam's race. He was therefore under the law of sin and death, like us all. And He was also under the law of Moses, unlike us. He had a work to perform. So in Galatians, chapter 3, the apostle says here, For as many as are of the works of law are under the curse, verse 10 of Galatians chapter 3, they are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Quotations from Deuteronomy 27 and verse 26. Here we have a statement of law. Cursed is everyone that does not do all things under the law. Now what would this have meant? Firstly, it meant that the Jews had to acknowledge personal failure. Secondly, it meant that in personal failure they had also to acknowledge that by reflecting upon their behavior they were unable to make themselves righteous and if they disobeyed one law, they were condemned by that law. That's a very important observation. So it says, The curse of the law was upon all those people who were under that law that they might understand that there is nothing in flesh which is worth redeeming. It can only be destroyed. It can only be humbled. It can only be crushed in contrition before God. Now says Paul, And that we might see in verse 11 that no man is justified by the law as evident in the sight of God. He says it's evident because the just shall live by faith. Yes, the just shall live more abundantly through his faith. The just is the righteous. So the righteous shall, through faith, ultimately inherit eternal life. That is a statement of scripture. Of course, it comes from Habakkuk. That is what every Jew should have realized. The just will only live by his faith, not by his works of law. And that is important. And then he goes on and he says there, And the law is not of faith in verse 12. The man that buddy says the man that doeth them shall live in them. Now what does he mean? He's quoting here, of course, from another passage of the Hebrew scriptures from Leviticus chapter 18 and verse 5, in which it says that the man that doeth these things is going to live by them, in them rather. He is going to make the way of life a kind of thinking that is based upon that law of God. Well, that's the purpose of the law. The law is not just there to condemn us. It's to give us an awareness of sin and the righteousness of God. And if we see the righteousness of God, we shall try and mold our lives around the righteousness of God. And that's important. The law therefore serves a good purpose. Now the apostle goes on. He says there in verse 13, Now Christ, he says, has redeemed us from the curse of the law, because he was made a curse for us, as it is written, and cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree, that the blessings of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Here was the keys of salvation, not through the law of Moses, but rather through the glorious promise of faith. Christ became a curse for us, because the law had said, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, but that law did not say whether that man was righteous or unrighteous, because the law of Moses considered every man to be unrighteous. The law of God was put into operation, and sin and death was put into operation, because all men have sins. What was Christ showing us? That that law was insufficient to cater for his position. And therefore, the law of Moses, being inadequate to cater for a righteous man, and cursing a righteous man, showed it did not suit this kind of man. A totally righteous man, therefore, was cursed, showing that Christ was more unique and of a better nature, of a better basis of God's working than what the law was. Therefore, said Peter, it was impossible that the grave should hold him. You, you who with wicked hands took him, and crucified him beforehand that God had already prophesied would happen. He says it was impossible that the grave could hold a righteous man. So he came forth. He fulfilled the law of Adam, the law in Eden. He fulfilled the law of sin and death. He demonstrated the law of Moses was unable to cater for a righteous man, and as such it was put aside. It could no longer operate in Christ's case. And then he came forth from the grave as the firstborn of every creature, the firstborn from the dead. He emerged like Adam did in his creation from the dust of the ground. He came forth as a new Adam, a new man. And all who can and who will may associate with him instead of Adam and the law of sin and death, an escape via his death through the grave to be with Christ. And now we belong to Christ, not Adam. He's the second Adam. That's our husband. No longer do we serve the lusts and affections of the flesh that belong to Adam. The keys of transition from a state of condemnation to the possibility of a world of righteousness in law to Christ. The Apostle Paul, when he was talking about this law again, brings our attention in Romans chapter 7 to the realities of law. And he says to us here, by raising the question of sin and law, Verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? More particularly here, speaking of course of the law of Moses. Is the law sin? Was the law wrong? Did Christ say the law of God was wrong? And then he says, God forbid, or more correctly, let it not be sin. No, he says, I had not known sin, but by law. So law gave to Paul a consciousness of sin, for I had not known lust except the law had said to me, thou shall not covet. He wouldn't be able to understand himself, would he? He wouldn't know what lust was. But when the law reached his mind as the bentorah in his bar mitzvah, he came of the age of 12 and 13, where the law became binding upon him. And when that law said to him, thou shall not covet, he suddenly became aware of lust. Now did that make Paul wrong, or the law wrong? He says, but sin, taking occasion by the commandments, wrought in me a manner of concupiscence. For without law, sin was dead. When I didn't have consciousness of the moral code of God's ethical division to us, then I had no knowledge of sin. Sin was dead. It was dead in me, that is, not dead to God. Well, he continues. I was alive without the law once. Before he reached his bar mitzvah, he was without the law. Christ at the age of 12 now enters the temple, and there was his bar mitzvah. He became the bentorah, the son of the law. And from that onwards, he was obliged to obey that law. Now he says, it came, the commandment came, sin revived, and what happened? I was a dead man, because the law condemned me. I became aware of my deadness. I became aware, he says, I died, and the commandment, which was ordained to life, a commandment was there to show me that life was possible. I only found the death was the outcome. And sin, taking occasion by the commandment, it deceived me. Sin in myself deceived me like it did to Eve and to Adam, ultimately. And then he says, and by it, it slew me. Wherefore, what do we say about the law? The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and it's just, and it's good before God. Well, he says, was then that which is made good, or is good made death unto me? That which was supposedly good, did this simply become death for me? Was this the outcome for me? He says, no, he says, let this not be, but sin that it might appear as sin. Sin that it might appear as sin. Working death in me by that which is good, the law of God, he says, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. There was the commandment. You see, mankind has some idea of moral consciousness, but as when, in fact, he is able to place himself alongside a commandment that condemns him every day for breaking it, then sin becomes exceeding sinful. Thus, as the apostle then says to us in the third chapter of Romans, looking at the Jew and the Gentile, here was the acknowledgement of the facts of man's worlds, looking at the Jew and the Gentile, Christ looks at the law and says, have we proved that the Jews are any better than Gentiles, says Paul in verse 9, no, in no wise, because we have demonstrated both Jew and Gentile that they're all under sin, under the dominating power of sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands. There is none that seeketh God, and so he concludes. Down in verse 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatsoever the law says, it says to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, and all this age may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of law, shall no flesh be made righteous in his sight. For by law is the knowledge, the knowledge of sin. And that's the importance of the observation of the law of Moses. The law of Moses was there to give the knowledge of sin and to make sin exceeding sinful. Now what do we do? David's our example. Cast our faces prostrate on the ground and plead for God's mercy and grace. Then the mind is ready to listen to the words of God. Isn't that a beautiful principle, really? The law doesn't make us righteous. It humbles us before our God. And if it does that, then it prepares our minds to talk with our God and for God to talk with our minds. It took a thousand years to get Israel to that stage. From that profligate, unkind, fleshly group of sons that Jacob happened to have. In the process of time, we all learn by the education systems of our Father how to grow in the truth. Remember Peter had to grow. We've just seen that in our last session. Peter had troubles that had to be overcome in his own images of his cultural background. So do we all have the same problem. So Christ and the law came together. And Christ picked up that law and he took that law to a new dimension. Let's look at it in Matthew chapter 5. This chapter commences with the Beatitudes. The blessings upon those who would demonstrate those qualities of character that God most wants to see. And in verse 3 there he says the first of the blessings come upon the person who is poor. Blessed is the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And that commences the blessings. Isn't the most appropriate place to begin from? The poor in the spirit of man. That's what Isaiah meant in chapter 66. When he spoke there about he that is poor, and of a contrite heart, and the trembles of my words. The poor in spirit. What a wonderful blessing that is. If we can reach that stage where human arrogance and pride does not cause us to spirit our minds against other people. And our actions of aggression. Whatever it might be that we use as the spirit of our own beings. It's opposed to what God wants. And therefore we must break that spirit. Now however he goes through and he talks to Israel. He says to Israel in verse 13. You are the salt of the earth Israel. If you do your work as the salt of the earth the whole of the earth is flavored towards you. Again he says in verse 16. Let your light so shine before men. They were to be the lights of the world. They were to be the salt of the world. But all of this instead was becoming very mixed up in Israel's terrible stage of spiritual apathy, indolence and wickedness at this time. So the Lord Jesus Christ in his dissertation here before Israel, he was making it very clear that the law and the prophets were until John. And in the age in which the Lord Jesus Christ was living and teaching, this was an age when the commandments of the law of Moses were operative, still operative in the world at that time. And that's why Christ said to them, all of the scribes and Pharisees say to you, he said concerning when they teach the law you listen to it, obey it, it's right, but don't do what they do. The law was holy, just and true. Until it was particularly taken out of the way as the basis of God's dealing with us to consolidate righteousness. Then he says you must obey it and seek to obey the principle behind it. What he says in verse 21, you have heard that it has been said, them of old time, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgments. Well this law here is of course quoting from what we looked at the other day from Exodus chapter 20. It also takes up another little quote from Deuteronomy, but both of those verses say thou shalt not kill. That's what the law said. Why now does he say you've heard it said, that thou shalt not kill, but whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment. Where did that little bit come from? Not from the law of God. It came from Jewish tradition. Whosoever killeth shall be in danger of judgment which to somewhat draw off from the certainty of condemnation. So if in fact they were the ones who did the killing, then that might be a different situation. You're only in danger of the judgment seat, and the point is that the ones who create and decide who is in danger and who is not are the scribes and the Pharisees, the priests. So Christ comments on the ethics of killing, and he says, you've heard this said, he said, But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of Gehenna, the hellfire. Therefore he says, If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there are members that thy brother hath fought against thee, leave your gift, leave the fat as it means here, leave this gift at the altar, and go away and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. The Lord Jesus Christ is picking up a law of Moses here. Thou shalt not kill. But you see, so many of us can kill right here in the hearts. So many of us use the heart as a means of creating anger, and a spirit of aggression towards those who should be the recipients of our love. But you see, the law would not have condemned us for that, would it? The law did not cope with what could be the hate and maliciousness in a man's heart. The law did not go far enough to look at the complete image of Christ manifested in the people of his own choosing. The law itself, the law was there to remind us of sin. It was not there to tell us in every respect how deep sin was. Christ did that. The law challenged human interaction, but Christ challenges mental interaction. And so he says, If you hate your brother, don't come near my altar. I don't want to see you. Instead, get to the cause of the hate. How do you get to the cause of hate? If you have a problem, if there is discord, if there is a case where there is conflict, interpersonal conflict, go and discuss it, resolve the animosity, wring out the poison, get rid of the source of the hatred. Oh, brethren and sisters, how simple is this teaching? But how infrequently we address ourselves to it as the means of overcoming problems. The Lord made it very clear. I don't want to see you till you've gone and solved that problem with your brother. Yes, you can leave your gift at the altar. I'll acknowledge it's there. But I will not acknowledge that you have offered it until you make peace with your brother. Now, the law of Moses didn't say to do that, did it? No, it didn't. It taught us a lot of other things which should have gelled in the mind of a man a consciousness that he cannot hate his brother. For instance, of all those laws we looked at, some of which we looked at yesterday, the kindness that God said you have to show to a stranger, the kindness you have to show to animals, the kindness we must have towards one another, even to our enemies, must have told the Jewish people, you can't hate your enemy. The law did in fact say, when he deals with it here about the hate and the anger of killing, the law did in fact say that you are not to prosper the pathway of peace of the Edomites and Moabites that were amongst you. He said you mustn't prosper their peace, but he didn't say hate them. He said you must always bear them in reserve because they never helped you when they should have, and they had to be punished for that. But you see, the law in every other respect told us how to be kind to an enemy, but it didn't tell us how to treat the minds and the hearts inside. So Christ in his teaching got to the cause of sin, not the actions of sin. Law controlled the actions of sin, but Christ's words control the source of sin, the lusts and affections of the flesh which war against a godly soul. That's what he controls. The law of God as a code of ethics is still dominating our minds, but our righteousness and our salvation is not based upon law. That's the difference. Again, we look to Christ's words here. Let's go down to verse 27. You have heard it has been said of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say anew unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. So if you've got an eye that cannot control it, control the lusts and affections which find through the eye the windows of your mind and soul going out, it's better to pull your eyes out if you cannot control lust of looking upon another woman with desire to commit adultery. But the law didn't say you weren't allowed to look upon a woman. Christ does. Christ says that. And therefore Christ reminds us of just where in a man's heart the sinner performs and how many men and many women may go through this problem many times in a week and none of us know, do we? We do not know what's in the heart and minds of each other. The law of Moses would not have condemned a man or a woman for thinking it, but Christ does. And that takes up the commandment of God, thou shalt not commit adultery, and it tidies it up to the point where it makes it a very, very stringent reminder to us all. To think the sin is as bad as doing the sin. Now let me field a question here. What does it mean to look upon a woman to lust after her? It does not mean the fact that a woman might note that a man is attractive or a man might note that a woman is attractive. That is a vision of the eye and it's an assessment of the minds. It does not, however, mean that in your minds you have committed adultery. After all, we as a family and God surely appreciate each other, the love and the expressions we have with one another, love which itself expresses itself by the fact that we are a loving and affectionate community. That has nothing to do with adultery, as if we have to walk along like the nuns do with their eyes staring at the pavement all the way, lest they look upon a man with desire. Is that how we fight sin? No, we don't fight it that way. We fight sin by revitalizing what is inside the mind. If we have a problem looking upon women to lust after them or a woman to man, then revitalize the minds. Get the word of truth in there. Think about things which are beautiful. Think about the love we share one with another to give to each other, not to hurt or offend each other. We don't want to do that. But what we do want to do is consider the love and the God-likeness that must be shown in our hearts and minds, bearing abroad by our example what we share to others to understand the love that we should belong to and to avoid those sins which so easily bring mankind into his greatest state of deprivation before God. Our society, brethren and sisters, is going down the drain because of these problems of lust out of control. We don't want that to affect our households. We don't want that to injure the families that we have. True, we have to have broken marriages on occasions. True, these things happen. That's a shame they happen. Let's deal with them to help them wherever we can. But let's rather look at a remedy. A remedy to the problem is to bring our minds and hearts more firmly around the love of this truth and the spirited comprehension of these glorious words that drive us into operation to do the right things before God. The wrong things are displaced by what is done positively in our minds. But Christ reminds us of the personal responsibilities we have towards our partners in the truth. This is built on law. Certainly it's built on law. And by law shall we be judged. But the point is this, that we have responsibilities for each other. So he says in verse 32, I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, causes her to commit adultery. So you see, we cannot. The brethren cannot suddenly say, well look, I think this marriage is distracting me from the truth now, so therefore I want to go away and live in the country somewhere. I want to become a hermit. I'll take my Bible and all my books with me and I'll study there. I really think the monastery life is for me because I can't cope with all the other pressures. Here, with a seemingly spiritual objective, one can be held guilty for causing his wife to sin. So it's not just what you do or what you think. According to Christ, you have to become a moral guardian for your neighbor, for your wife. The law didn't say that, did it? Look at how Christ takes the law and places it in the context of a man's otherwise lustful position that gets so out of control. If you put away your wife, you will cause her to commit adultery and I'll hold you guilty for that sin. Except, of course, if she's already done the sin. Except, of course, if some kind of fornication has already taken place. Then obviously you can't cause her to commit a sin. She's already committed. But remember this, that irrespective of what you do, I will hold you guilty if your wife fails through you abandoning your conductal and personal responsibilities towards her. Very important points. However, the Lord Jesus Christ then says in verse 38, You've heard that it's been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, resist not evil. But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. If any man will sue thee in law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever commands thee to go a mile, go with him too. Give to him that asks of thee, and from him that would borrow thee, but turn thou not away, he says. Here was obviously teaching which was reversing a very clear aspect of the law. In regard to us, the law had regulated the crime and the punishment and said the punishment must match the crime in a theocratic society that is necessary, but we are not that today. It is not for us to go to law one against another, whether it be Gentile or brother. It is not for us to go forth to court to seek what is rightly ours. It is not for us to seek retaliation or revenge. But Christ's words are clear and true, that we must pray for our enemies. He says in verse 43, Yes, you heard it was said, but the law never said to hate your enemy. In fact in Deuteronomy 23 verse 6 it says, That doesn't mean you hate your enemy. That's part of Jewish tradition there. Well he says, But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. That's a very different thing to what the law said there. Do we do that? Do we brethren pray for those who persecute us, despitefully use us, or do we otherwise seek reason for revenge? Laughing when in fact someone, some misfortune has affected those who might be our enemies. Seeming to have some gloating upon the misfortune of someone who despises us. That's not the way God thinks. It's not the way Christ thinks, and it's not what he said to us. So we wouldn't dare say, brethren and sisters, that we are not under law to God. We are under law to God. The law of Christ. And the law of Christ has picked up the ethics of the law of Moses and made them far more consciously consisting of a law upon our minds than the law of Moses ever did. In this way, brethren, we see that God's righteous code of ethics has a great meaning for us today. The law of Jesus Christ reinforced that code. Let us never think that the law of Moses was wrong and it's gone. It hasn't. As a force of condemnation, yes. But as a reminder of God's righteous code, no. And thus we shall be judged by what Christ has said to us in addition to anything God requires of us. And in that sense, we stand or fall before our God. But may we be always conscious of the need to see Christ as the reinforcer.

Transcript

The psalmist had looked upon the law of the Lord and had seen that it was something in which he delighted. It became his study all the day. He was able to see in it a lamp before his feet and a light before his pathway. He was able to meditate in the law of his God and to very great advantage because in this law was concealed the mind of our Father. And therefore in every respect of law that we look at, be it in the Hebrew or the Greek scriptures, we are looking at the mind of our Father. The scripture tells us that the mind of God is as high above the heavens, as high above the earth as in fact as the heavens are. The heavens are above the earth. God's ways are above our ways. He thinks much higher than we do. The only way we elevate our thinking to the platform of his kind of thinking is by absorbing the very great measure of divine truth that we see in the law of our God. Therefore at whatever stage we come in and look at the law of our God, we are looking at the mind of our God. And though at different times there have been different provisions made for different people. For instance, David was told to take the sword and go out and to smite and to kill and to proclaim. We are told not to take the sword. Does this mean God has changed his standards? No, it means that we are in a different phase of the working of God's kingdom. When his kingdom was literally upon the earth, there was a theocracy. And that theocracy was the sustaining of the human civilization by God's counsels. Today we are dealing with the minds. We are dealing with the battle against the mind. And we take the sword of the spirit to wield it against the mind, not against the evil men that might surround us. But in the kingdom age, we shall see then the beautiful coalescence of two great periods that have been working on through society to bring us to the zenith of God's glorious kingdom. We shall see the elements of the law of Moses revived again in the kingdom age, but administered by the minds of those individuals who during the process of divine grace working in the ecclesial household, We have been working upon the law of God in our hearts more so than upon external matters. Israel's law, the external. Our law, the internal. And hence how the Lord Jesus Christ, when he came in the fullness of time, it was able to bring our attention to consider what's going on inside the minds, to deal with sin at its cause, not at its effect. The law of Moses dealt with sin at its effect. Christ at its cause. And hence our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ takes the power of the divine law and brings it into a kind of a hallmark of development where we can see within that law that the whole inner feelings of God betrayed through his son. But before Christ came, that could not be seen. Before Christ came, the law said, That I have not seen nor ear heard of the glories that God has prepared for those that love him. But then the apostle quotes that verse and says, But now we see. Now we see. We see many things now that in the days of the Hebrew scripture were not perceived in their fullness. So the Lord Jesus Christ in his teaching, taking hold of the law of God, brought it to a close, intricate and internal consideration so each one of us have to look inside ourselves to see the development of God's word and his laws. But let's look at laws now, not as thou shalt and shalt nots, but laws which represent divine principles upon which our minds operate. Let me illustrate this point from Romans chapter 7. The seventh chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul here is talking about the mind that he possesses and brings it in regard to the word of God. In the seventh chapter, I find in a law, verse 21, Romans 7, I find a law that when I would do good, evil was present with me. Now was that a law in the sense of thou shalt or thou shalt not? No, it wasn't. It was a principle of operation. He was establishing this as like a law of gravity or a law of deflection or something. This was like a principle by which things work. Here was the principle that when I would do good, when I would act out a good thing, evil is present with me. And so, says the apostle, I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Well, was this only the law of Moses? No, it wasn't. It's God's divine code of ethics. It's the law of God by which we shall also be judged, reinterpreted in the ways of the law of Christ. And hence, through the law of Christ, we see the law of God operating in the inward man. Now, says the apostle, but I see another law, another principle. It's operating in my members, in my body, warring against the law of my mind and there is a furious mortal battle going on there and bringing me into captivity, seeking to draw me towards the law of sin which is in my members. What was this law of sin in his members? Did this mean it was Paul before he was baptized? No. You will notice a difference of the law of sin in his members now from what you read in verse 2 of chapter 8. There it says, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Now, we have in our members, brethren and sisters, the law of sin. But we do not have the law of sin and death. There is the difference. The condemnation is taken out of the law of God towards us. Here is the beauty of Paul's position. Now his mind has been born in the spirit word. He has been redeemed by his Lord. Now he sees this power of his mind working with the law of God written in his thinking in every passage of his mind. And now as he goes to battle against the flesh, he says, if it's left up to me, the flesh wins. But he says, oh wretched man that I am, who is going to deliver me from this rotting corpse? The rotting corpse? This rotting corpse means that it's a body which is perfectly healthy but it has had sewn onto it and attached to it a corrupting, cutrifying body. And the disease of the corrupting body now affects the skin of the good body and corrupts the good body. That's the illustration there. Who's going to deliver me from this rotting corpse? Well, the question is answered. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I serve the law of God. But with the flesh? The flesh itself is always attached to the law of sin. But not condemnation. Here is the unique difference of the change from the law of Moses to the law of Christ. In Christ the divine code of ethics is not only placed back in there but it is recharged and innovated to the point where it becomes much more stringent upon the mind and obedience of the believer. Now we have much greater perception of the divine mind in Christ. Much greater than Israel had under the law. Therefore there is encumbered upon us also much greater responsibilities to fulfill it. Now he says, I still have the battle. The law of sin is still there. Do I give way to it? No, he says, we don't give way to it. Should I sin that grace may abound? No, we don't let grace abound with greater sin. Only grace abounds with greater acknowledgement of sin, not greater sin. And so he makes it clear to us that our way and the truth must involve the lawful words of Almighty God seen in the interpretation of God's law by Christ and by His commandments we must live. Well, let's just go back for a moment to James chapter 2 now and see the way in which the law of God, particularly drawing out principles of the law of Moses, do find their operation today in our sin of necessity also because we have a great responsibility to show the divine attributes in our character. Now the second chapter of James, verse 8 says, If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now notice that. He calls it the royal law. What this means is it is a sovereign or an overruling principle of life. That's what the royal law is. It's a sovereign principle. Some groups get hold of this royal law and say, Well, this is the Ten Commandments and the rest of the laws were with the Old Covenant. That's not the point at all. The royal law is this. It's a sovereign principle which should prevail upon us like a kingly form of thinking. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. This is royal, very royal. And it's the duty of kings and priests to exercise this law in their lives. Again, just come back now for a moment to look at this royal law in Matthew's record again of the life of Christ. Matthew 22. 22 and at verse 38 where the Lord Jesus Christ is again discussing with the leaders and lawyers of his day. So look for the connection here just in verse 35. And then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Now here the Lord Jesus Christ gives the same answer that we saw a couple of days ago as we saw it from Luke chapter 10, preceding the power of the Good Samaritan. The master says, Well, what's the great commandment, Master? And he says, Well, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy hearts, thy soul and thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Now that is an amazing statement. On these two commands, one commandment from Exodus chapter 19, the other commandment from Deuteronomy chapter 6. And on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So we can see a really supercharged ideal here coming under the teaching of Christ, telling us that there's something really royal about this. Royal to the point where if we can just see that every aspect of divine teaching in the day of the Apostle Paul, the day of the Lord Jesus Christ was to see that it was our love for God and to serve him with everything we have and then to turn immediately to our colleagues and serve them with every sensitivity which we possess. And that is the royal law. What a great sovereign principle that is. And what a challenge, brethren and sisters, to ask to try and obey it. And you know, that's what the law said in its quintessence. There was the beauty of the law and everything else was subservient to that. It doesn't matter what law you go to. Even if you talk of that law, thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk. What was that telling us? Some aspect of this royal law. Whichever of the laws you go to, it involved a subordinate rank to this great sovereign principle of love for God first and love for our neighbors as ourselves. That is the way Christ injected into the community. And he wanted them to see the power of this new way of thinking. The laws weren't new. It was a new way of thinking about them. Hence you find in John chapter 13 the words of the Lord Jesus Christ here concerning what he says is a new commandment. But was it new? John chapter 13. Verse 34. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one the other. A new commandment, he says. How come it was new? Not just a new way of thinking, but you see it's new by nature. The expression of this word new here doesn't mean new in time. It has to do with new by its nature. And therefore the newness of the nature here was that in fact when we think about this and think of what its meaning is to us, it becomes an entirely new way of developing love, developing obedience, developing the mind of God in us. And hence in Christ's words there he says, I have loved you, he says, as I have loved you, so you love one another. Christ loved us in what way? By dying for us. By putting down every principle of self-determination in his own life. By repudiating what before him might have seemed to be something more palatable. He repudiated every sense of his own thinking, placing God's mind entirely as the sovereign principle over his thinking, and thereby brings us to the power of his sacrifice for us. This is a very, very new way of thinking. When we look at the dimensions of this, brethren and sisters, this reminds us that to a Jew he had to really convert his mind into a different form of thinking. Previously the Jewish people thought that the law of God made them holy because they were attached to that law. It's almost holiness by association. They were Jewish people. They had been circumcised the eighth day. They had the covenants of promise. They had received the law by the dispensation of angels. They were the light to the worlds. They were the salt of the earth. And in all these things the Jews created with themselves a sense of innate national holiness because of that law being in proximity to them. Now the way Christ looks at it is very, very different. The new commandment is that we live and love together as we serve the truth in a very vitally different way to what the Jew did. This transition from one phase to another we're reminded of in Romans chapter 12. Let's just go there for a moment. Transition from one form of thinking to another. So in Romans 12 and verse 1 he says, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God which is your service of reason. I once had that verse quoted to me in the authorized version. It says which is a reasonable service. That we shouldn't really be too enthusiastic for the truth because all what God wants is a reasonable service. Very unusual way of looking at it, isn't it? But we can delude ourselves by such perhaps inadequate translation. What Paul is saying is that this verse is telling us God wants a rational service. He wants us to understand what our service of sacrifice is. We must make it a mental approach. It is not purely an emotional design or an approach. What it must involve us in is sacrifice where it hurts. Now he says in verse 2, and be not conformed to this age. Now what did he mean by conformed to that age? He's talking here about the Jewish age, the Jewish aeon. The age that was going to end with the destruction of Judas' commonwealth when there would no longer be a temple and an altar there upon which offerings could be made to God according to law. In the removal altogether of the altar offerings, the age was finished in regard to Judas' commonwealth and the operating factors of the law of Moses. The law of Moses cannot operate without an official temple. So no Jew can obey the law today. There is no temple, there is no altar. He must revise it for himself. In the case of our obedience to the law, Paul says, don't conform yourself to the thinking of this age, but he says, be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds. Well this transformation, the Greek word metamorphoumi, is the word from which we get the metamorphosis stage of the little grub going into its cocoon, spinning itself a cocoon, it goes into like a typical death. It winds itself up in an encased house where there is no air, or there is some air there of course, but there is no actual life seen outside that case. The cocoon is totally enclosed in, in a kind of figurative coffin, a sarcophagus. And that grub having gone in there, it breaks out of that sarcophagus and it becomes a glorious butterfly and it flies into the heavens. And that's the expression behind that word metamorphoumi. It's to transform ourselves from the grub, what we might call the little tolar grub of the law of Moses, the crimson grub that used to be crushed up to get out the crimson dive for making the offerings at the altar for lepers and other things. Here this little grub goes into its burial state and it comes out flying into the beauty of a much more glorified animal creature. This is us. This is the Jewish people. They come out of the law of Moses when Christ takes the law of Moses into his coffin with himself. He took it into the tomb and out of that tomb arose someone that was going to fly to the spiritual heights of heaven. Christ of course went literally to the heavens. We in our minds go to the heavens. We are raised up to sit together with Christ in the heavenlies, as the apostle says, because we fly out of the cocoon. We lift our minds and our whole experience to a heavenly direction. We liberate ourselves from the commander that only endorsed sin and death upon us. We become free creatures, freed from the earth, and we fly into God's world, the heavens. And as such we now perceive new things by transforming the mind to see that the law is not a thou shalt and thou shalt not. It's not as if we have to go to the list of laws behind the kitchen door when we're invited to do something. We go back and say, now let me see, am I allowed to do this? What did Christ say? And you go right through the list of laws. Clause 25, Part C, Section 34, and there it is. No, I can't do it. Sorry, I can't do it. What we have to live by is that consciousness of thinking where we know instinctively the rights and the wrongs because our minds have been trained. Our minds have been transformed to a new way of thinking where we can tell under two principal headings whether it's right or not. Is it me serving God with all my heart, my mind, my soul, and my strength? If I do this thing, is it the evidence of that or is it the evidence alternatively of serving my brother as myself and loving him as myself? Now if we analyze, brethren and sisters, every human form of thinking and behavior under either of those two headings, we have our answer and we can interpret what's right and wrong on that basis. And if only we do that, then we show true perception in understanding what it was upon which the whole law and the prophets of Israel had rested. Well, of course, we still need definitions because we don't all understand these things as we should. As we grow in the truth, hopefully we grow in our perception and understanding of God's requirements of us. But we do need help and assistance. We need the direction of the loving wisdom of the Apostle Paul. Give us examples of what he's talking about. How do we get this great perception of love in action? The law of our God, the perception of the divine code of ethics which now stimulates our minds and moves our bodies to do very different things. Well, we find it by such examples as we look at in chapter 9 of Romans. Rather, no, he's still in chapter 12 there. Notice verse 9 though. Chapter 12 and verse 9. Here we read the words, But let love be without dissimulation. Abort that which is evil and cleave to that which is good. Now, here's how we start to apply this added perception of these spiritual thinkers, the heavenly thinkers. Let love be without hypocrisy. Now, how does love have hypocrisy? Love has hypocrisy when we speak with our mouth and say, Yes, I do love this brother or I love this sister and I love the work they do for the truth. And then out of the other side of our mouth, we end up saying the opposite things, injurious and harmful accusations, things that don't belong to the love that we originally espouse. Of course, we realize how love must not be hypocritical, but all of us from time to time fall into the difficulties of this problem. And that's why he says love must go forth in a totally unified sense with a singleness of mind. Might we love one another without dissimulation. Abort what's evil, love what's good. Surely there is the consciousness within us all to know what is evil and know what is good. We've got to hate the evil things. Don't flirt with them. Don't see how close you can get to those things. Don't see how close you can get to sinning and doing the things God doesn't want you to do. Love the things that are good. Love the brethren that, of course, and sisters from whom we share the wonderful fellowship that we have in the truth together. Where love and truth are stimulators, not where the flesh gains its free exercise. Says the apostle in verse 10, Be kindly affections one towards another with brotherly love. Affection. Affection means warmth. Affection means the expression of love between ourselves as a community. The love and the warmth with which we express the affections we have. This is what guides us to the meaning of love. This is what lifts our minds to consider carefully what God wants to see in us as a family of loving brethren and sisters. Not the coldness, formality, the austerity of the church's communities outside of our community. But he says, preferring one another. That means preferring one the other. Preferring someone else's good before your own goods. Isn't that the exercise of loving others as yourself? Wouldn't we love to see the, in our own experience, the very best for our welfare? The very best intentions achieved successfully in our lives? If we want this, then let's look at it for our brethren and sisters and seek it for them instead. Here's the kind of love where someone sacrifices themselves. A brother sacrifices himself to help his brother and sister. They might be in a very great need. They can be in great distress, confusion and difficulty. What do we do? Sit by and watch it all go by? Or do we step in? See what we can do to help. Sometimes it rebounds on us. Sometimes people don't want our help. And they can read wrong motives on what is done. But does that stop us loving those people? It shouldn't. After all, the Lord Jesus Christ pleased not himself. He did a great deal in the exercise of love for us until ultimately, dying for us, he showed what love meant. And so the apostle here is giving us some idea of the meaning of this kind of mind that serves another person. Let's go over again in the, in the epistle of the Romans, chapter 14 this time. Notice again his emphasis here as he talks about the practical elements of love. Verse 1. Him that is weak in the faith, receive ye but not to doubtful disputations. Let's just notice a more accurate reading here. Him that is weak in his faith. That doesn't mean weak in the truth. But in his persuasion of a matter, whether he should do something or not, like meats offered to idols or whether he should keep certain customs or festivals. If he was weak in his faith, in his persuasion of these matters, he says, receive him, he says. But not to doubtful disputations. Don't receive him and then argue with him and cajole with him in verbal polemics about whether he should or shouldn't do something. Receive him and help him. Give opportunity for his growth and development in his faith and confidence of understanding of what is right and wrong. We're not talking about the laws and commandments of Christ here. We're talking about those certain issues upon which there must be reserve of judgment made in intelligent mature discernment, such as the meats offered to idols. Such as doing some things which maybe to us is quite, we're quite in liberty to do. We have no problem with it. But to do so in front of young brethren and sisters may cause them to stumble. And the apostle Paul said Christ died for that person. Don't you forget that. Don't let your liberty become an occasion for that person's failure. Well, in this 14th chapter, then, he says in verse eight for us that whether we live, we live unto the Lord's. Or whether we die, we die unto the Lord's. Whether we live therefore or die therefore, we are the Lord's. We are bought with the price of blood and therefore we should serve the Lord. We belong to him. We have to have his emissaries in the great work of the truth. Well, he says for this end, verse nine, Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. And now he reminds us, why dost thou judge thy brother? Why dost thou condemn thy brother? Again, this is the question of how love operates in our dealings one with the other. How can we condemn our brethren if we believe we love them? Well, a brother might do something wrong. But we have no right to say to him, you won't be in the kingdom of God. No right at all to say that. That is for Christ to say that, not us. It may well be that down the road what this brother is doing now could well be wrong. But place it in the hands of God, which his life is, and take him down the road another 12 months, another 12 years. God will correct that brother. He will instruct him. He will chastise him. He will direct him, not us. We don't control the salvation of our brethren and sisters. We just have to give loads of love and help and forgiveness to make sure we're doing what we can. But down the road it is God who does this. God is able to correct in measure. He is able to draw out and develop his children. It is not for us to do that. And it is not for us to condemn in any sense whatsoever. Do not condemn your brother. For why do you set it nought, your brother? We're all going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Can we say that on the one hand and think, well, I'm going to show lots of judgment to these people. They're not coming up to my standards. They're not doing what I think they should be doing. You're not going to be in the kingdom of God. And that kind of language, brethren and sisters, does not belong to the saints of God. If we see a brother caught in his weakness, what should we do? Okay. Chapter 15. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Right. Well, let's look at this in the sense of the strong and the weak. The word strong there means the able. The person who is able by his greater maturity and greater spiritual strength, he is more able to bear the weaknesses of others than other weak ones might bear of him. So he says, we that are the strong, we ought to bear the weaknesses of the not so strong. And to bear there means to carry as a burden, a trial, which requires great patience to bear it up. Now, that's the instruction to us. Well, if there is a brother in weakness or a sister in weakness, what ought we to do for them and for their benefit? We've got to carry them. We've got to carry them on our shoulders. There was once a little proverb written. A proverb, it was really the outcome of a dream. You might have seen it, but let me quote it to you. There was this man who had a dream. And his dream was that he was working with his lord along the beach. And there were two sets of footprints. And so as they walked along the beach, the two sets of footprints were seen. And then as they got further along the beach, there was only one set of footprints. And the man was greatly troubled by this dream. And he says to his lord, Lord, I followed you all the way. But yet in my greatest moments of weakness when I needed you, there's only one set of footprints there. Here am I walking on my own. Why did you leave me? And says the lord, when there was only one set of footprints, my son, that's when I was carrying you. And in effect, that's exactly what verse one is saying. We've got to bear those in their weakness. Many of us, brethren and sisters, through different reasons of backgrounds, cultural differences, social problems, family problems, education problems, linguistic and ethnic problems, we all come from different backgrounds. We all bring different problems into our ecclesial life. And we all have to bear each other up and help each other through those processes of difficulty. We all have problems. It's just that some problems are greater than others. So let us bear in mind the apostle's application of love here. Says he now, let every one of us please the neighbor for his good, to his upbuilding, his edification. I can't think of any better way for Paul to express loving your neighbor as yourself, the principle we find in Scripture in Exodus 19. What better way can it be expressed than by saying it like that? If we can see that we are pleasing our brothers and sisters in the truth and not ourselves, will this not guide us to sacrifice our own will, our own time, our own energies, to love and try and help them and build them up in their difficulties, to come by the side of them, to sit with them, to feel with them their problems, to share with them their tragedies, and not simply to go and do the things that we otherwise could be much happier doing? We could always be happier simply going out and having a nice entertaining time with our brethren and sisters, those with whom we might say we have particularly good personality meshing. We sort of think the same way, we laugh at the same silly jokes, we do the same kind of things together, we sort of turn on to each other, and we can spend time happily with those people. It's a great relaxation to do that, we realize that. But often we have to sacrifice those moments to say, look I'm sorry brother such and such, I can't come with you today on this outing or this family activity we're doing. Maybe there's another brother that needs some care and attention, or another sister that needs a little help. I'll catch up with you later on. And so sacrifice can be made to give our time to those who need it. That's a way of love which sometimes, brethren and sisters, in our communities we've almost forgotten because of two reasons. Firstly, our own lifestyle can become that busy that we schedule our minutes so finitely that we're looking ahead to developing our own work, to developing our own skills, to doing the things that we want to develop in our domestic life, our houses, our society, wherever we might be living. And then we've just got no time to think about the needs of others. We're very busy people. The world is running to and fro and knowledge has increased and we're all caught up in the world of this mad world society we're in. The other reason is that the freedom of the individual, the emancipation of self has become so strong that we dare not sometimes put our attention upon a brother or sister who has a problem lest it be said, we're going to interfere with their rights. Lest we be called a busybody. And yet we can see our brethren and sisters caught in problems and difficulties which can destroy their salvation. And we can sit by and say, well, that's their business. If we love our brethren and sisters, we don't think like that. If we love them, we think, now look, I see my brother and sister in a problem. This could well cost them their life. This could bring them to a point of spiritual extinguishing. I can't stand by and watch my brother or sister going and touching the electrified wires there. What do we do? As the apostle said, don't please yourself. Work on your brother for his edification, for his upbuilding, for even Christ please not himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen on me. And the apostle here in Romans 15 verse 3 is quoting here from Psalm 69 and verse 9 regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ didn't please himself. The reproaches with which Israel had reproached God. They said a lot of things about God. They didn't want God to interfere with their private lives. Jesus Christ took all those reproaches on himself. He bore them all as a burden for us. Taking all those reproaches, he took them on himself and he went to the stake and he died. Taking all those reproaches with him. Was he concerned about what people thought of him? No, he wasn't. He was concerned only with what he thought of other people and how he wanted to die. That he might provide a way of salvation for all their many weaknesses. Again the apostle reminds us in verse 4 saying, for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, for our teaching that we through the patience and the comfort of the scriptures might have the hope within us for the God of patience and consolation to grant you to be like-minded, like-minded one towards another in the sense that we have the same thinking one towards another. What a great love that is. When we can think like that, brethren and sisters, then we are emerging into life realizing that the greatest privilege we have is the oneness and unity we share together helping each other, bearing each other's weaknesses. And sometimes the reverse role has to happen. Sometimes the one who's strong in this area, who bears the weaknesses of others here, will be found to be weak in this area and he needs bearing up. Of all of us, brethren and sisters, we only know these things if we get to know each other, if we understand each other's problems, difficulties and trials. We have been purchased with the price of blood and we are told in scripture that we are to owe no man anything. That's the principle of love. Owe no man anything. If it is within our hands to pay something, we should pay it. If we have something that belongs to another person, we should return it to him. Except, of course, we borrow with permission for a while. But we must pay what we owe, said the law under Israel. If it is within your hand to pay a man, you will not keep that money overnight. You must pay him for his services. We vary that by agreement, of course. Not a daily paycheck, but a weekly paycheck or a fortnightly paycheck. But the principle is this. We should not hang on to things which belong to others. But you know, brethren and sisters, there is one debt we have that is never, ever paid off. And it's this. Romans chapter 13 and verse 8. What's the debt? It's never paid. The debt is that we owe love to each other. Self-sacrificial serving for the benefit and edification of our brethren and sisters. That is the love which is an unpaid debt. We can never say, well, I've now paid off my debt. The debt is always there. It is never paid off. So we always owe each other love as if it is a debt and payment for which we must feel personally responsible to make good. And that's the sort of debt we have for one another. So he says in verse 9, For this thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. Notice as he goes through these principles of the laws here. Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly summed up in this saying, in this proverb, in this precept. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And there is the apostle Paul's commentary on the commandments of Moses. It is all summed up in that comment. Thou should love thy neighbor as thyself, because love works no ill to the neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. The law of God, the law seen through Moses' codes, the law reinterpreted and revived with Jesus Christ's codes, the law of God with which this whole world is going to be brought into obedience at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. All of this is the law of God, and it's summed up in the same expression. Briefly this, we should love one another. And that was why Christ said, it's a new commandment. Because it's a new way of looking at an old precept. What power this is, brethren and sisters. The royal law, as James calls it. What a royal sovereign principle that motivates our beings together as brethren and sisters, serving each other in the way that Christ did, dying for each other. If we can do this, then God can look upon us and see in us the reflection of His Son, who could do no greater thing as a friend than lay down His life for the ones He loved. Yes, that's the theory. In the practice, brethren and sisters, well, now it's up to us as we leave this Bible school to look at the practice. We've come aside for a spiritual festival to place our minds in a concentration camp. To make sure we can concentrate on the work of God. And as we camp one with another, we lift and elevate our minds to the spiritual heights of this Word and of its responsibilities. Of course, God willing, there'll be another Bible school here or someone else in the region next year. But now we've got 12 months. We've got 12 months to look at the Word. In our ecclesial life, in our domestic circles, in our marriage responsibilities, in our relationship with colleagues at work, in our preaching and proclamation activities of the Word of God, in every respect we are full of interpersonal communication situations where now this law must be seen. The great power of the morals of Moses' law demands of each of us to give of our greatest love to God and then share that love with our brethren and sisters. May our Lord say to us when he returns, Brother, since you have done all this to these the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.