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March 30, 2021
What We Learn From the Law (Walk Thru the Bible Week 9)
Torah is often translated “law” but literally means “instruction” and includes the first 5 books of the Bible as well as the Mosaic law. What was God teaching the Israelites with the law? The Apostle Paul said the law instructed us on our need for Christ. Learn about the other important lessons found in the laws of Moses.
This episode complements the daily readings from our Walk Thru the Bible reading plan for March 29 - April 4, covering Various Laws.
Show Links:
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Going Deeper: Loving the Law with Rabbi Shmuel Bowman - YouTube link coming soon
Walk Thru the Bible Reading Plan – http://icejusa.org/walkthrubible
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Transcript
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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12 month journey through the most exciting
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book on the planet.
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It will transform your life one page at a time.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible
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to life.
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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.
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Well, hey there and welcome back to Walk Through the Bible.
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This is week nine and I know this was another week when you may be skimmed through a lot
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of our reading because we're in the section about the law and I know I skimmed a little
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bit myself.
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But there are some really important things that we can take from today's reading or from
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this week's reading.
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So I've entitled this week, The Purpose of the Law.
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We're reading this week in the Daily Bible pages 257 through 295 or the dates of February
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26 through March the 6th if you are using the Daily Bible.
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I hope that you enjoyed last week and are going deeper series with Rabbi Shmuel Bowman.
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We have another interview with Rabbi Bowman this week as well and we're going to talk
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about some of the law that we're covering today with him to hear his perspective as an
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Orthodox Jewish Rabbi.
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So please see me back here in a couple of days when we release the Going Deeper interview
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with Rabbi Bowman.
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I also mentioned last week that at the end of our first quarter in a couple of three
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more weeks we're going to do a first quarter review and I want to hear from you.
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So go to our website outofzionshow.com and please give me your comments and your questions
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because we want to pull those together and answer your questions and it will really help
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me to know what it is that you want to know more about and we'll just do a mini review
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somewhere around week 12 or 13.
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We'll let you know.
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So last week we covered the Feast of the Lord, the Sabbath, the sabbatical year, jubilee
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year and then the three great Feasts of the Lord, Passover, Shavuot and Tabernacles.
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This week it wasn't quite as fun reading.
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We had to read about laws of government and about special crime and about personal rights
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and remedies and marriage and divorce and sex and health and dietary laws and general welfare
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and wow it went on and on.
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So what I want to spend some time with today is to back up and kind of take a look at the
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big picture here.
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What God was doing in the law and first we have to understand the principle of covenant.
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We've used the term several times in our reading, covenant.
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And so it's on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant where God made unconditional promises
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to Abraham that what he was going to do is create a nation out of him and through that
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nation he was going to bless all the families of the earth.
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So it's because of the Abrahamic covenant or agreement you could say, a covenant is
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like an agreement between two parties.
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And because of that agreement with Abraham, God then rescued the people of Israel from
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Egypt and brought them into the wilderness and then he made a covenant with them there
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like a covenant almost like a marriage proposal, a marriage contract where he said, I will
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be your God and if you will obey me and you'll do these things you're going to be a treasured
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people, a treasured nation unto me above all other peoples and they said we will.
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And so that was like a marriage, that's the Mosaic covenant.
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The Mosaic covenant God laid out like the parameters of their relationship and it was
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that if you do this and this and this you're going to be blessed.
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But if you do this and this and this then you're not going to be blessed and it actually
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says you're going to be cursed.
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So it's a conditional covenant based on blessing and cursing.
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And so if you want to walk in the blessings, this is the parameters, this is how you need
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to live.
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Why?
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Because he is a holy and righteous God and if we want to walk in fellowship with him
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as his people, we have to walk in righteousness and holiness and impurity and he told him
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exactly how to do it.
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That's what it's all about.
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It's not because God is so judgmental and he's just laying down the law.
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He wants fellowship with his people but he's telling them this is the only way that you
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can be my people, that you can live in my land because it's a holy land and that you
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can live in fellowship with me and see my presence and know my presence because I'm
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a holy God.
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So he lays it all out before them.
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I want to be clear, the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of salvation.
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Never did he say, if you obey all these laws then you will be saved, that you will go to
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heaven.
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No, this was a different, this was laying out a relationship here between God and his
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people.
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The sign of the Abrahamic covenant was circumcision and the sign of the Mosaic covenant is Sabbath
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observance and they were to confirm the covenant by obeying it and he said, take my word, take
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these commandments, my word and bind them in your mind and in your heart and obey them.
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So the word Torah, which in the New Testament has been translated the word law and I have
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to say that Torah and law gets a pretty bum rap by a lot of Christians and that's because,
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of course, Jesus came and died for us so that we are forgiven of our sins and we now live
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in freedom in Christ but it's not a freedom to live however we want to and do whatever
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we want to do and this is where there's, I think, a little bit of confusion within how
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do we please the Lord and how do we live righteously before him and it's by being led by the Holy
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Spirit and walking in fellowship with him and step by step, day by day, we walk in righteousness
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but yet in freedom of grace, knowing that we are forgiven.
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But I want to talk to you just a minute about the purpose of the law because the word Torah
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means instruction.
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It's not just law so Torah actually applies to the first five books of the Bible that's
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called the Torah and it contains the law but it's much more than that.
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It's the history, it's the stories here of God and his people and so Torah is actually
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a better translation of it is instruction or the teachings and Torah means more than
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just the first five books of the Bible.
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There are times where Torah has been used to actually refer to the entire writings of
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the Old Testament and it includes the oral Torah which is the rabbinic tradition.
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So the word Torah to a Jewish person is a huge volume of information.
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Unfortunately with Christianity I find a lot of Christians just think it's about the law
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and it's a very, very narrow definition of it.
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But now that we've gotten that out of the way, law is also not necessarily legalistic.
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It is man that makes laws legalistic when we don't abide by the heart and the spirit
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of the law and we just are abiding by the letter of the law and we fall into legalism
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very, very easily.
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But that doesn't mean that the law originally was bad.
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It means that man tends to empty of its meaning and live in a legalistic observance of the
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law and that's what we all have to guard against.
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Even in Christianity, I mean, do you know a Christian that maybe or someone that goes
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to church, they may even wear a cross necklace, they may even bring their Bible to church.
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But then you see them live in a very, very ungodly way for whatever reason.
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But do you know anyone like that?
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That's the same thing.
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That's of not abiding by the spirit, but just doing some legalistic things and then thinking,
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well, now I can go be however I want to, I can be angry if I want to, I can be self-righteous
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if I want to, I can be condescending, I can do this, I can do that.
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Because we have fulfilled a legalistic system of what we think is expected of us.
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We all have to be careful of that, not just the Jewish people, but all of us.
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So now that you know that Torah actually means instruction, what can we learn?
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What is God really teaching?
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What is it that He's teaching His people through the law?
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Now that I just want to remind you, because there's a verse that I'm sure you've heard
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a lot and you might hear it a little differently now, but it's Galatians 3 verses 23 to 24.
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And it says, before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith
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which would afterward be revealed.
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For the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
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But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
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So here the apostle Paul is saying that the law was our tutor, it was our teacher, it
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was to teach us to bring us to Christ.
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So one of the things that the law taught the people was their need for atonement, and that
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they would fall short of the law.
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And so it was our tutor, it taught us that so that we came to Christ for atonement and
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for forgiveness for our sins.
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But there are other lessons in the law that the law teaches us.
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And for one thing, not to say that we're obligated to obey the law, we're not.
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Under Christ we are not.
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The mosaic law was given to the people of Israel.
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But we are following the God of Israel.
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So whatever he was teaching his people Israel through the law, I think we need to learn
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it so that we can apply it to our lives.
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One of the things that he was teaching them, which I've said it many times over, is that
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he is a pure, a holy and righteous God.
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And that therefore we have to be righteous and holy to be in fellowship with him because
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he can have nothing to do with sin.
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That's one of the things we learn from the law.
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We learn about the grace and the mercy of God that he made a way for their sins to be
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forgiven.
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He made a way for there to be sacrifice for sin, that there would be the laying on of
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hands on the scapegoat and to release the scapegoat that he would take the sins far
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away from the camp and away from the people.
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All these visual things God was teaching his people that he is gracious and merciful if
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they'll just come to him in the way he is prescribed that there's grace and mercy for
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them.
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And we learn about his great love and jealousy for his people.
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He wanted them to be different from all the other peoples.
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He wanted them to stay separate and unto him and not follow other gods and not do wrong
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things and end up mixing with the locals in bad lifestyles because he loved his people
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and he is a jealous God.
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And lastly we learn from the law that it's our choice if we want to live in blessing
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or if we want to live apart from God and live in cursing, it's our choice that he's given
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us free will and we can choose.
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We learn all these various things from the law.
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And we see in the law that if we love God, we love his word and part of his word is his
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law.
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Now I want to read to you a verse here from Deuteronomy 11 that we read this week.
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It's Deuteronomy 11, 18 through 25.
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And it says, Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul
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and bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as a front lip between your eyes.
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You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you
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walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, and you shall write them on your
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doorpost of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children
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may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like
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the days of the heavens above the earth.
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Now he's saying here that take my words and bind them as a sign on your hand and wear
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them as a front lip right between your eyes and carry them in your heart.
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That's how much we're to love God's commandments.
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And I'm sorry, but there are some in the Christian world that have just produced a disdain for
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the law because they look down on it so much.
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And today I want us just to take this time to realize that the law is a reflection of
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our God that we serve.
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And so we want to learn everything from it that we can, that we can live lives free
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in Christ but pleasing unto this God.
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So now the Jewish people, they take this verse, you and I just read this verse and we apply
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it spiritually, okay, spiritually.
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We're to have it in our hand and in our mind and in our heart.
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And so we take that spiritually.
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But he was telling the Jewish people, the people of Israel, very specific instructions
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here.
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And so they have developed traditions of actually doing this.
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And how do they do it?
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But it's with what's called a Tefalim in Hebrew.
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In Greek it's called a phylactery.
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And so they have taken a little black box or made a black box and in there they've put
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four sections of scripture.
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Two out of Exodus.
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One is the scripture I just read and the other is the famous commandment, the Shema that
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we talked about a couple of weeks ago.
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And so they've put those scriptures in the box.
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So these are the key commandments from their God and they actually put it on their forehead
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and with a leather belt or what's the word to use coming off of it, cords, they wrap
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it around their head and then they have another box that they put on their left arm.
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So it's close to the heart and they wrap them the leather cord all around their arms.
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And they do this literally.
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But the most beautiful thing is that while they're doing this, they are saying certain
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blessings and one of the blessings is this.
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I betroth you to me forever.
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I betroth you to me in righteousness, justice, loving kindness and mercy.
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And every morning when a Jewish man is doing the phylacteries, he is renewing and reminding
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himself and renewing that covenant of marriage with God.
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I betroth myself to you.
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I love your word.
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I hold it near to my heart and carry it before me.
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Another way that they fulfill this verse literally is about also putting the word on the doorpost
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of their home.
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And so you may be very familiar with this.
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It's quite common.
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A mezuzah.
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A mezuzah is Hebrew for doorposts, but it's the word that has come to be known for a little
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ornamental box that's long and narrow and inside there is a parchment.
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And that parchment has two verses in it from the Torah.
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The first, the verse we just read.
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And secondly, the shema.
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And it's put inside this little ornamental piece.
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And on the piece there's always the symbol of the Hebrew letter, sheen, stands for the
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name of God.
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And they will attach this little box on the doorpost of the home.
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Some Jews put it on every doorpost, even inside the home.
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And others just do it on their outside doorpost.
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And as they go past, you'll see them reach up and touch it and kiss their lips to show
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their love and their reverence for the Word of God and that they have fulfilled this
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commandment.
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Now there's another commandment that we read this week.
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And it is about making tassels on the corners of their garments.
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You may have noticed that scripture when you were reading it.
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And it says that you will have these tassels to look at so you will remember all the commands
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of the Lord that you may obey them.
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And so at the corners of their garment, which for some that means the corners of their prayer
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shaw that they put on to pray, and for a religious Jewish person, an Orthodox, they will have
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a garment with the tassels.
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And a lot of times you'll see them showing.
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But it's also okay if the tassels are inside their clothing so you won't always see them.
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But these tassels are there in obedience to this command to remind them of the commands
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of the Lord.
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And what's really interesting here is that the word for the corner where they're to
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put the tassel is Knaf.
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And Knaf is also translated border, but it's also translated as wing.
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So there's several times in the Bible where Knaf is translated as wing and it's correct.
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There's one time when the word Knaf is used and it's in Malachi 4-2 and I want to mention
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this because it's Malachi 4-2 that it says that the son of righteousness shall arise
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with healing in his wings.
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Now I will tell you that for many, many, many, many years when I heard that scripture, which
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is a very famous scripture, we've all heard it.
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I kind of see the son of righteousness rising like an angel or a bird with wings, right?
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Because it just gives itself to that picture.
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But it's the word Knaf.
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And so the rabbis have a tradition that because of Malachi 4-2 that they expected the Messiah
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to have healing power in the tassels that are on the Knaf of his garment, the corners
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of his garment.
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And for that reason, in the New Testament, we find that the woman with the issue of blood
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that reached out for the tassel, she wanted to reach out and touch the hymn, the corner,
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the tassel of his garment because she believed he was Messiah and would therefore have healing
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in the corner of his garment.
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It's a prayer garment.
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It's a holy garment.
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It's a garment about the commandments of God.
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And sure enough, it did have healing.
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And the Lord commended her, Jesus commended her and said that her faith had made her well
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because her faith was in him as Messiah.
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That's why she reached out.
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And it says in other scriptures that many were trying to reach and touch the hymn of
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Jesus's garment.
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It's because of this expectation.
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They expected the Messiah to have healing in the corners and the tassels of his garment.
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And sure enough, he did.
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So now let's talk a minute about another scripture in the New Testament that does mention specifically
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about the phylacteries and the tassels.
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And this is when Jesus in Matthew 23.5, he actually scolds those, he says, the Pharisees.
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He said, everything they do is done for people to see.
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And it says that they make their phylacteries wide.
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That means the boxes were big, very big, so that they're visible.
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And they made the tassels on their garments long.
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And so he wasn't condemning the use of a phylactery or a tassel.
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Obviously, Jesus wore tassels because they are mentioned in the scriptures that people
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tried to touch them.
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We can assume, I think it's safe to assume, that Jesus also used the tifeline because
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an Orthodox man of the time would have used these phylacteries.
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He is condemning not their use, but using them for show, which is actually breaking
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the commandments that they should be reminding the people of.
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So we all have the propensity to stray from God's law and from the spirit of the law.
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And that's what we have in that verse about the phylacteries and the long fringes.
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So just a couple of observations as we bring this to a close.
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For the last two weeks, we've been reading through a lot of laws, commandments, and it's
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a little easy to get lost in the details.
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So we've taken sort of a step back, the 30,000-foot view of the law, the big picture of what God
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was teaching us people.
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And one thing I want to point out is it seems that our God is a God that understands man's
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need for routine.
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We need very, very practical things to remind us of the Word of God, to remind us of God
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in our daily lives, to remind us of the amazing things that He's done for us.
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And so we in the evangelical Christian world, we like to throw off all restraints.
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We don't like liturgy in our church services.
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We don't like any kind of formality in our church services.
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We want to be free.
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We want to have free worship.
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We want all of that.
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I want to say that there's something very helpful about having holy routines in our
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lives, holy practices that make sure that every day we're reminded of God in His Word,
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that we don't go for a whole week without thinking about Him because we've put in our
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lives certain routines, certain things that don't just remind us of God, but also give
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us the opportunity to teach our children and the next generations about our God.
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And so let's honor these reminders that God gave the people of Israel.
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And let's learn from them what we can.
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And that's one of the things.
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Also is to ask to honor God and to recommit ourselves to Him.
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I mean, every day an Orthodox Jewish man is renewing that vow of betrothal to the Lord.
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Don't you think the Lord would be pleased if we had some little routine that in our
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life, whether it's every day or every week, that we're just recommitting ourselves to
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Him and inviting His presence into our lives.
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You know, the Torah, the law was given to teach and to instruct.
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And there are rich principles that we can take from our study of the law that will enrich
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our lives, that will enrich our relationship with our God.
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So I invite you back here later this week on our Going Deeper episode where we talk
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about the issue of the law and the Torah with Rabbi Shmuel Bowman.
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So I will see you back here in a few days on Going Deeper and then again next week,
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next week we get to leave the law and begin entering the land of promise.
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I can't wait.
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I'll see you back here then.
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And until then, God bless.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,680
Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12 month journey through the most exciting
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book on the planet.
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00:00:08,180 --> 00:00:11,200
It will transform your life one page at a time.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible
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00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:16,640
to life.
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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.
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Well, hey there and welcome back to Walk Through the Bible.
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This is week nine and I know this was another week when you may be skimmed through a lot
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of our reading because we're in the section about the law and I know I skimmed a little
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bit myself.
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But there are some really important things that we can take from today's reading or from
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this week's reading.
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So I've entitled this week, The Purpose of the Law.
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We're reading this week in the Daily Bible pages 257 through 295 or the dates of February
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26 through March the 6th if you are using the Daily Bible.
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I hope that you enjoyed last week and are going deeper series with Rabbi Shmuel Bowman.
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We have another interview with Rabbi Bowman this week as well and we're going to talk
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about some of the law that we're covering today with him to hear his perspective as an
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Orthodox Jewish Rabbi.
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So please see me back here in a couple of days when we release the Going Deeper interview
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with Rabbi Bowman.
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I also mentioned last week that at the end of our first quarter in a couple of three
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more weeks we're going to do a first quarter review and I want to hear from you.
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So go to our website outofzionshow.com and please give me your comments and your questions
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because we want to pull those together and answer your questions and it will really help
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me to know what it is that you want to know more about and we'll just do a mini review
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somewhere around week 12 or 13.
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We'll let you know.
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So last week we covered the Feast of the Lord, the Sabbath, the sabbatical year, jubilee
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year and then the three great Feasts of the Lord, Passover, Shavuot and Tabernacles.
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This week it wasn't quite as fun reading.
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We had to read about laws of government and about special crime and about personal rights
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and remedies and marriage and divorce and sex and health and dietary laws and general welfare
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and wow it went on and on.
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So what I want to spend some time with today is to back up and kind of take a look at the
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big picture here.
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What God was doing in the law and first we have to understand the principle of covenant.
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We've used the term several times in our reading, covenant.
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And so it's on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant where God made unconditional promises
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to Abraham that what he was going to do is create a nation out of him and through that
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nation he was going to bless all the families of the earth.
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So it's because of the Abrahamic covenant or agreement you could say, a covenant is
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like an agreement between two parties.
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And because of that agreement with Abraham, God then rescued the people of Israel from
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Egypt and brought them into the wilderness and then he made a covenant with them there
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like a covenant almost like a marriage proposal, a marriage contract where he said, I will
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be your God and if you will obey me and you'll do these things you're going to be a treasured
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people, a treasured nation unto me above all other peoples and they said we will.
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And so that was like a marriage, that's the Mosaic covenant.
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The Mosaic covenant God laid out like the parameters of their relationship and it was
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that if you do this and this and this you're going to be blessed.
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But if you do this and this and this then you're not going to be blessed and it actually
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says you're going to be cursed.
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So it's a conditional covenant based on blessing and cursing.
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And so if you want to walk in the blessings, this is the parameters, this is how you need
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to live.
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Why?
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Because he is a holy and righteous God and if we want to walk in fellowship with him
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as his people, we have to walk in righteousness and holiness and impurity and he told him
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exactly how to do it.
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That's what it's all about.
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It's not because God is so judgmental and he's just laying down the law.
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He wants fellowship with his people but he's telling them this is the only way that you
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can be my people, that you can live in my land because it's a holy land and that you
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can live in fellowship with me and see my presence and know my presence because I'm
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a holy God.
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So he lays it all out before them.
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I want to be clear, the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of salvation.
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Never did he say, if you obey all these laws then you will be saved, that you will go to
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heaven.
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No, this was a different, this was laying out a relationship here between God and his
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people.
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The sign of the Abrahamic covenant was circumcision and the sign of the Mosaic covenant is Sabbath
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observance and they were to confirm the covenant by obeying it and he said, take my word, take
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these commandments, my word and bind them in your mind and in your heart and obey them.
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So the word Torah, which in the New Testament has been translated the word law and I have
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to say that Torah and law gets a pretty bum rap by a lot of Christians and that's because,
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of course, Jesus came and died for us so that we are forgiven of our sins and we now live
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in freedom in Christ but it's not a freedom to live however we want to and do whatever
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we want to do and this is where there's, I think, a little bit of confusion within how
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do we please the Lord and how do we live righteously before him and it's by being led by the Holy
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Spirit and walking in fellowship with him and step by step, day by day, we walk in righteousness
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but yet in freedom of grace, knowing that we are forgiven.
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But I want to talk to you just a minute about the purpose of the law because the word Torah
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means instruction.
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It's not just law so Torah actually applies to the first five books of the Bible that's
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called the Torah and it contains the law but it's much more than that.
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It's the history, it's the stories here of God and his people and so Torah is actually
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a better translation of it is instruction or the teachings and Torah means more than
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just the first five books of the Bible.
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There are times where Torah has been used to actually refer to the entire writings of
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the Old Testament and it includes the oral Torah which is the rabbinic tradition.
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So the word Torah to a Jewish person is a huge volume of information.
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Unfortunately with Christianity I find a lot of Christians just think it's about the law
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and it's a very, very narrow definition of it.
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But now that we've gotten that out of the way, law is also not necessarily legalistic.
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It is man that makes laws legalistic when we don't abide by the heart and the spirit
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of the law and we just are abiding by the letter of the law and we fall into legalism
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very, very easily.
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But that doesn't mean that the law originally was bad.
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It means that man tends to empty of its meaning and live in a legalistic observance of the
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law and that's what we all have to guard against.
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Even in Christianity, I mean, do you know a Christian that maybe or someone that goes
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to church, they may even wear a cross necklace, they may even bring their Bible to church.
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But then you see them live in a very, very ungodly way for whatever reason.
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But do you know anyone like that?
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That's the same thing.
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That's of not abiding by the spirit, but just doing some legalistic things and then thinking,
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well, now I can go be however I want to, I can be angry if I want to, I can be self-righteous
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if I want to, I can be condescending, I can do this, I can do that.
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Because we have fulfilled a legalistic system of what we think is expected of us.
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We all have to be careful of that, not just the Jewish people, but all of us.
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So now that you know that Torah actually means instruction, what can we learn?
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What is God really teaching?
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What is it that He's teaching His people through the law?
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Now that I just want to remind you, because there's a verse that I'm sure you've heard
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a lot and you might hear it a little differently now, but it's Galatians 3 verses 23 to 24.
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And it says, before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith
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which would afterward be revealed.
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For the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
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But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
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So here the apostle Paul is saying that the law was our tutor, it was our teacher, it
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was to teach us to bring us to Christ.
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So one of the things that the law taught the people was their need for atonement, and that
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they would fall short of the law.
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And so it was our tutor, it taught us that so that we came to Christ for atonement and
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for forgiveness for our sins.
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But there are other lessons in the law that the law teaches us.
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And for one thing, not to say that we're obligated to obey the law, we're not.
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Under Christ we are not.
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The mosaic law was given to the people of Israel.
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But we are following the God of Israel.
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So whatever he was teaching his people Israel through the law, I think we need to learn
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it so that we can apply it to our lives.
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One of the things that he was teaching them, which I've said it many times over, is that
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he is a pure, a holy and righteous God.
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And that therefore we have to be righteous and holy to be in fellowship with him because
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he can have nothing to do with sin.
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That's one of the things we learn from the law.
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We learn about the grace and the mercy of God that he made a way for their sins to be
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forgiven.
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He made a way for there to be sacrifice for sin, that there would be the laying on of
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hands on the scapegoat and to release the scapegoat that he would take the sins far
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away from the camp and away from the people.
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All these visual things God was teaching his people that he is gracious and merciful if
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they'll just come to him in the way he is prescribed that there's grace and mercy for
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them.
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And we learn about his great love and jealousy for his people.
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He wanted them to be different from all the other peoples.
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He wanted them to stay separate and unto him and not follow other gods and not do wrong
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things and end up mixing with the locals in bad lifestyles because he loved his people
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and he is a jealous God.
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And lastly we learn from the law that it's our choice if we want to live in blessing
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or if we want to live apart from God and live in cursing, it's our choice that he's given
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us free will and we can choose.
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We learn all these various things from the law.
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And we see in the law that if we love God, we love his word and part of his word is his
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law.
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Now I want to read to you a verse here from Deuteronomy 11 that we read this week.
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It's Deuteronomy 11, 18 through 25.
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And it says, Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul
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and bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as a front lip between your eyes.
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You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you
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walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, and you shall write them on your
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doorpost of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children
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may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like
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the days of the heavens above the earth.
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Now he's saying here that take my words and bind them as a sign on your hand and wear
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them as a front lip right between your eyes and carry them in your heart.
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That's how much we're to love God's commandments.
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And I'm sorry, but there are some in the Christian world that have just produced a disdain for
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the law because they look down on it so much.
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And today I want us just to take this time to realize that the law is a reflection of
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our God that we serve.
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And so we want to learn everything from it that we can, that we can live lives free
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in Christ but pleasing unto this God.
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So now the Jewish people, they take this verse, you and I just read this verse and we apply
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it spiritually, okay, spiritually.
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We're to have it in our hand and in our mind and in our heart.
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And so we take that spiritually.
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But he was telling the Jewish people, the people of Israel, very specific instructions
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here.
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And so they have developed traditions of actually doing this.
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And how do they do it?
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But it's with what's called a Tefalim in Hebrew.
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In Greek it's called a phylactery.
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And so they have taken a little black box or made a black box and in there they've put
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four sections of scripture.
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Two out of Exodus.
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One is the scripture I just read and the other is the famous commandment, the Shema that
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we talked about a couple of weeks ago.
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And so they've put those scriptures in the box.
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So these are the key commandments from their God and they actually put it on their forehead
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and with a leather belt or what's the word to use coming off of it, cords, they wrap
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it around their head and then they have another box that they put on their left arm.
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So it's close to the heart and they wrap them the leather cord all around their arms.
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And they do this literally.
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But the most beautiful thing is that while they're doing this, they are saying certain
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blessings and one of the blessings is this.
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I betroth you to me forever.
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I betroth you to me in righteousness, justice, loving kindness and mercy.
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And every morning when a Jewish man is doing the phylacteries, he is renewing and reminding
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himself and renewing that covenant of marriage with God.
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I betroth myself to you.
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I love your word.
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I hold it near to my heart and carry it before me.
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Another way that they fulfill this verse literally is about also putting the word on the doorpost
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of their home.
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And so you may be very familiar with this.
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It's quite common.
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A mezuzah.
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A mezuzah is Hebrew for doorposts, but it's the word that has come to be known for a little
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ornamental box that's long and narrow and inside there is a parchment.
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And that parchment has two verses in it from the Torah.
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The first, the verse we just read.
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And secondly, the shema.
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And it's put inside this little ornamental piece.
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And on the piece there's always the symbol of the Hebrew letter, sheen, stands for the
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name of God.
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And they will attach this little box on the doorpost of the home.
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Some Jews put it on every doorpost, even inside the home.
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And others just do it on their outside doorpost.
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And as they go past, you'll see them reach up and touch it and kiss their lips to show
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their love and their reverence for the Word of God and that they have fulfilled this
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commandment.
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Now there's another commandment that we read this week.
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And it is about making tassels on the corners of their garments.
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You may have noticed that scripture when you were reading it.
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And it says that you will have these tassels to look at so you will remember all the commands
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of the Lord that you may obey them.
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And so at the corners of their garment, which for some that means the corners of their prayer
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shaw that they put on to pray, and for a religious Jewish person, an Orthodox, they will have
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a garment with the tassels.
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And a lot of times you'll see them showing.
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But it's also okay if the tassels are inside their clothing so you won't always see them.
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But these tassels are there in obedience to this command to remind them of the commands
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of the Lord.
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And what's really interesting here is that the word for the corner where they're to
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put the tassel is Knaf.
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And Knaf is also translated border, but it's also translated as wing.
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So there's several times in the Bible where Knaf is translated as wing and it's correct.
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There's one time when the word Knaf is used and it's in Malachi 4-2 and I want to mention
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this because it's Malachi 4-2 that it says that the son of righteousness shall arise
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with healing in his wings.
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Now I will tell you that for many, many, many, many years when I heard that scripture, which
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is a very famous scripture, we've all heard it.
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I kind of see the son of righteousness rising like an angel or a bird with wings, right?
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Because it just gives itself to that picture.
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But it's the word Knaf.
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And so the rabbis have a tradition that because of Malachi 4-2 that they expected the Messiah
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to have healing power in the tassels that are on the Knaf of his garment, the corners
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of his garment.
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And for that reason, in the New Testament, we find that the woman with the issue of blood
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that reached out for the tassel, she wanted to reach out and touch the hymn, the corner,
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the tassel of his garment because she believed he was Messiah and would therefore have healing
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in the corner of his garment.
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It's a prayer garment.
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It's a holy garment.
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It's a garment about the commandments of God.
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And sure enough, it did have healing.
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And the Lord commended her, Jesus commended her and said that her faith had made her well
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because her faith was in him as Messiah.
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That's why she reached out.
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And it says in other scriptures that many were trying to reach and touch the hymn of
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Jesus's garment.
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It's because of this expectation.
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They expected the Messiah to have healing in the corners and the tassels of his garment.
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And sure enough, he did.
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So now let's talk a minute about another scripture in the New Testament that does mention specifically
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about the phylacteries and the tassels.
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And this is when Jesus in Matthew 23.5, he actually scolds those, he says, the Pharisees.
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He said, everything they do is done for people to see.
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And it says that they make their phylacteries wide.
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That means the boxes were big, very big, so that they're visible.
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And they made the tassels on their garments long.
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And so he wasn't condemning the use of a phylactery or a tassel.
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Obviously, Jesus wore tassels because they are mentioned in the scriptures that people
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tried to touch them.
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We can assume, I think it's safe to assume, that Jesus also used the tifeline because
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an Orthodox man of the time would have used these phylacteries.
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He is condemning not their use, but using them for show, which is actually breaking
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the commandments that they should be reminding the people of.
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So we all have the propensity to stray from God's law and from the spirit of the law.
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And that's what we have in that verse about the phylacteries and the long fringes.
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So just a couple of observations as we bring this to a close.
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For the last two weeks, we've been reading through a lot of laws, commandments, and it's
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a little easy to get lost in the details.
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So we've taken sort of a step back, the 30,000-foot view of the law, the big picture of what God
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was teaching us people.
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And one thing I want to point out is it seems that our God is a God that understands man's
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need for routine.
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We need very, very practical things to remind us of the Word of God, to remind us of God
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in our daily lives, to remind us of the amazing things that He's done for us.
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And so we in the evangelical Christian world, we like to throw off all restraints.
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We don't like liturgy in our church services.
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We don't like any kind of formality in our church services.
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We want to be free.
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We want to have free worship.
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We want all of that.
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I want to say that there's something very helpful about having holy routines in our
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lives, holy practices that make sure that every day we're reminded of God in His Word,
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that we don't go for a whole week without thinking about Him because we've put in our
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lives certain routines, certain things that don't just remind us of God, but also give
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us the opportunity to teach our children and the next generations about our God.
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And so let's honor these reminders that God gave the people of Israel.
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And let's learn from them what we can.
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And that's one of the things.
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Also is to ask to honor God and to recommit ourselves to Him.
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I mean, every day an Orthodox Jewish man is renewing that vow of betrothal to the Lord.
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Don't you think the Lord would be pleased if we had some little routine that in our
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life, whether it's every day or every week, that we're just recommitting ourselves to
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Him and inviting His presence into our lives.
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You know, the Torah, the law was given to teach and to instruct.
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And there are rich principles that we can take from our study of the law that will enrich
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our lives, that will enrich our relationship with our God.
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So I invite you back here later this week on our Going Deeper episode where we talk
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about the issue of the law and the Torah with Rabbi Shmuel Bowman.
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So I will see you back here in a few days on Going Deeper and then again next week,
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next week we get to leave the law and begin entering the land of promise.
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I can't wait.
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I'll see you back here then.
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And until then, God bless.
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